For many years, this movie was attributed to Joe D'Amato, with some sources referring to it as a directorial collaboration between him and Claudio Bernabei, the original titular of the pseudonym Alexandre Borsky, with which a series of 15 porn films were signed in 1980-1981. However, the book "Luce Rossa" (Franco Grattarola, Andrea Napoli, 2014) finally gave a definitive answer to this mystery and the truth is that Claudio Bernabei was the real director here, with D'Amato producing, writting the script and dubbing a minor character. The confusion was, in part, generated due to the opening credits, who just before the movie's title announces "un film di Joe D'Amato", something the happens in almost all films of this series. I think that by "un film di..." they were actually meaning "una produzione di...". Or perhaps D'Amato's name was used to attract more attention to the movie, given the reputation he already had in the circuit of erotic movies. The end credits say that the photography was done by Aristide Massaccesi (D'Amato's real name), but "Luce Rossa" says the real photographer was Enrico Biribicchi!
I confess that I didn't see any difference in terms of style between this and "Sesso Acerbo", a film from the same period I watched recently that was directed by D'Amato alone. In both cases, we have the typical lazy narrative scenes showed in a single master shot, for example. One could guess that Bernabei was just following the aesthetic norms of D'Amato? Or perhaps the latter had some imput in the helming of the movie? Who knows...
The plot is about Julie (played by the very androgynous French actress Françoise Perrot), a young nymphomaniac woman who goes to spend the school holidays with her sister Anne Higgins (Laura Levi). The latter is married to George (Roland Carey), whose assistant Deborah (Pauline Teutscher) is temporarily living with them. Julie's arrival will bring troubles to family and the story will finish in a tragic way (although the poor execution of the ending resulted unintentionaly funny).
This being hardcore pornography, there isn't much space for character development and the thin plot is undermined by the constant sex scenes. Even so, I found some interesting aspects. The main of them is the protagonist. Françoise Perrot seems very at easy in front of the camera, and her androgynous face conveys a perverse ambiguity that fits well for the role of a sex predator destroying a family. It is a shame that they didn't explore her character with more profoundity. The two sequences featuring Perrot masturbating are the higher points of the movie in terms of eroticism. Her performance in these scenes brings a disturbing mixture of hedonist abandon and inner emptiness, like if she was aware of her incapacity of finding real pleasure. And this awareness prompts her to act against those who have a happy sex life. The aforementioned scenes are extraordinarily well photographed and they have all the marks of D'Amato.
Benefited by a total lack of humor, the film is watchable for fans of D'Amato and those interested in the early years of Italian porn. With more ambition and less laziness, this perhaps could have turned into a small masterpiece. The cast also counts with small parts for Guia Lauri Filzi and the gorgeous Sonia Bennett.
The end credits roll to the sound of 'Celebrate Myself", the excellent opening theme of"Emanuelle In America", and this is the worst sin committed by this film.
