8 Francaises

I almost expected Herve Bodilis's "8 Francaises" to be a takeoff on Francois Ozon's mainstream nearly all-star feature "8 Femmes", a rather dumb musical featuring Deneuve, Darrieux, Ardant, Huppert and Beart -an equivalent of which no U.S. studio has assembled in modern times. But it's not, and only succeeds as quality porn thanks to solid casting.

Bodilis, who has made hundreds of videos for Dorcel over the past 20 years (and seemingly works for no one else), has delivered a rather regimented structure -I know not why. Each of six sex vignettes has an actress trudging to a house across a courtyard, her belongings pulled along on a roller like a stewardess, to go to makeup, chat a bit, and then hump her scene for us. There's biographical photos and data flashed on the screen and the whole thing seems like some demented '90s Playboy video spotlight on a centerfold. I saw hundreds of those terrible Playboy videos, many shot by Scott Allen but an occasional odd one like Michael Bay's famous effort, and hated the sameness -pure assembly line.

Well, Bodilis is an assembly line director, whose output is always flat and predictable. But when he hands in a winner it's because of the femme cast, and here that's what happens.

I love Clanddi Jinkcego, perhaps the least appreciated of Dorcel's superstars, probably because she arrived way too late in the "big fake tits" sweepstakes, now out of step with today's preference for Riley Reids and Piper Perris as standards of femme jail-bait beauty. She does an exciting narcissistic turn in front of a full- length mirror, prior to being humped vigorously.

Among the other winners are superstar Liza Del Sierra, and several newcomers, with solid lesbo action included. It's worth watching, though hardly a game- changer: I searched in vain through his credit list just now only to discover that none of Dorcel's all-time classics were directed by his most frequently relied upon Monsieur Bodilis.