Contrainte par corps

A female version of "midnight express" the posters claim ;wishful thinking!it's also and mainly another version of the hackneyed subject "women in jail where you can get an eyeful".This may be based on a true life story ,it does not make a good movie for all that : almost all the prisoners are sexy and good-looking (Tanya Lopert and Lisette Malidor look like models),and the unfortunate heroine (Marianne Basler) is particularly gorgeous:unfairy imprisoned ,because of a vicious peeping tom cop (Vittorio Mezzogiorno) ,she is thrown into a prison which does not look at all with the hell depicted in "midnight express" .

Serge Leroy (who had made worthwhile works in the past :"La Traque" and "Attention Les Enfants Regardent ") desperately tries to make up for the soft porn side of his film by painting the portrait of an ambiguous cop :admittedly ,he is a sadist who gets fun by persecuting his victim but he talks of his mother ,"who has made a cake for the prisoner" ,we see him enter a church ,kneel and pray;in another context ,it could have been convincing ,here it amounts to nothing .

Both principals are talented actors ,here lost in an incredible story ;Basler and Mezzogiorno would meet again in the following year ,in "La Révolution Française " as Mrs Danton and Marat.