Jesus Franco's 1970 VAMPYROS LESBOS (inexplicably titled above "El Signo del vampiro") is the masterpiece of all Euro-exploitation genres. You can swoon over the Greenaway lighting in SUSPIRIA; you can thrill to the comic-book metaphysics of THE BEYOND; a few solitary freaks might smack their chops over CANNIBAL FEROX. But the Big Mama, the 2001 or INTOLERANCE of the litter, is Franco's fever-dreamy Z movie, a dusted-out collage of St. Tropez glamour, poisonous softcore sex, platter-party lounge music gone Satanic, and more crazy zooms than the entire body of martial-arts movies combined.
Franco has made more movies than probably any other living filmmaker, and there's something intuitive and inspired in each of them. But in none of his other works did he so perfectly combine what he learned, in his zonked-out way, from his masters (Resnais, Antonioni and especially Welles), and his own lurid, kick-addicted, grade-Z technique. This movie isn't just for B-movie weirdos; hardcore Tarkovsky fiends might find themselves after fifteen minute saying, "God...I kind of like this...what's happening to me?"
Franco has made more movies than probably any other living filmmaker, and there's something intuitive and inspired in each of them. But in none of his other works did he so perfectly combine what he learned, in his zonked-out way, from his masters (Resnais, Antonioni and especially Welles), and his own lurid, kick-addicted, grade-Z technique. This movie isn't just for B-movie weirdos; hardcore Tarkovsky fiends might find themselves after fifteen minute saying, "God...I kind of like this...what's happening to me?"