Based on the Renato Polselli films I've seen - REINCARNATION OF ISABEL and DELIRIUM - the man is far from a master of coherent narrative. Yet even by those lenient standards, TURIN, CENTER OF VICE (or LUST, as it was unceremoniously rechristened before being dumped to US DVD) is a total failure. Utterly incomprehensible and crushingly boring as a result, it's a complete waste of any disk it's pressed on.
In all fairness, direction is credited to Bruno Vani, but it seems to be assumed knowledge that TURIN counts as part of the extended Polselli-verse. The plot, such as I could ascertain, centers around some guy wandering the city, remembering / looking for his wife, who either is a hooker, was a hooker, or used to play some sex game with him where she pretended to be a hooker. If you ever wanted a cross between LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD and TEENAGE PROSTITUTION RACKET that reads like it was written by a developmentally challenged sixth grader, here's the film for you.
Critiquing this movie is nearly impossible because I had almost no idea at any time what was going on. A couple scenes edge toward take-off velocity - there's a great, sleazy scene, for example, where a prostitute is raped by a gang of bikers - but to add insult to injury, it seems like the 78-minute version is cut. Whenever it looks like things are about to get cooking and the inveterate sleaze maestro is really ready to take the gloves off, the film will cut bashfully away, leaving almost no nudity at all in the finished product - a real Polselli no-no! To add insult to injury, the DVD looks like it was taken from a 17th generation VHS dupe, with blown-out highlights, tracking errors, and all the fine detail of a Monet painting. At my most charitable, I'm hoping there's a version out there that's at least more fun - if not more comprehensible - but given the available evidence, it's hard to hold out much hope.
