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copernicus-6
Reviews
Body Talk (1982)
An attempt at the tragic love tale
A very dreary and depressing story of an older woman falling in love with a young penniless artist and learning that she will die soon. If that wasn't enough the parents of the guy also get in the the way upsetting the marriage. Most of the sex scenes are of the uninspiring aged female protagonist copulating with various random men while her rich benefactor is peeping on the scene through the dark hole in the wall. Watched it mainly for Kay Parker, but unfortunately her beautiful smooth mature body, her radiant warmth and bony profile are just shown for a couple of minutes, not enough to outbalance the rest.
Overall competently shot as you would expect from the period, showing some slapdash approach at times though. It's rather noticeable that the same room and bed was used for different scenes with only a slight alterations. A lot of obnoxious music throughout the movie, which seems to be a common curse of the genre - a try to mask the dubbing imperfections?
Initiation au collège (1979)
Deadly innocent
What really to watch this for is a candy delicious early performance by Cathy Greiner, who gets tenderly initiated by her teacher in the after-school session at his apartment and eventually falls in love with him. The whole scene is softy lit in red and green and Cathy plays it out very naturally, first being orally fulfilled, brimming the substance joyfully inside her mouth, and then gradually spilling it all over herself looking innocently upwards. The male is a weak part, a meeky type in his bathrobe and round glasses. And although showing some dark sides later on, one feels the lack of cunningness in him. Here just a recital from Apollinaire was enough to tame the lythe throat.
The main theme of the movie is the corruption of innocence, "initiation". Delicate Cathy has a counterpart and a rival, her classmate Samantha (Brooke West), who plays a nasty spoiled girl who spies on her aunt having an intercourse with a servant and later indeed, following Cathy secretly on her adventure, she makes some compromising photos of the teacher thus having him at her disposal from them on - undressing him in front of the class, making him take her to a brothel, etc. As Cathy is not being able to cope with it for long, this leads to the resolution and the parting shot.
Brooke West had some curious features. Here she is all rock-n-roll, speaking in hoarse low voice and behaving daringly, in a classroom, chewing her bubble-gum and having to show through her semi-transparent pink organza shirt her wonderfully shaped breasts. There is also a rather kinky flashback interrogation scene where she and another freckled girl get undressed and thoroughly examined by two aging cops. Brooke especially seems to enjoy it and having such a fun time. Big blunder however in most of her scenes is the choice of sound - the director uses some teenage rock themes with such a glee that we don't hear anything else. Which is a pity and a downer - the rustle of the bed sheets and sounds of the intermittent female breath could be ever so erecting.
As the previous reviewers mentioned there is an American porn-star Desiree Cousteau in the cast, but in reality her appearance here is barely a cameo part. She appears in only one foursome scene and looks nice and sun tanny and auburn, but rather ineffectual and goes almost unnoticed. If you are a fan better look somewhere else.
Everything else is a standard set of rather meddling and tiresome intercourses thrown into the mix to live up to the chronometrage - you get your leather masks, black midget and communal masturbation in the Bois de Boulogne.
Les enfilées (1980)
An evening with the mirror
Alpha France at it's best. Basically a menage a deux, the story centers around a couple who, in search of excitement, brings various third parties to their flat - from the gloved connoisseur who never has an intimate relationship with the same girl twice to the inexperienced youth who is not quite sure of himself, and to whom the hostess attends alluringly and motherly. Jean-Claude Roy gives the material a rather chamber and comfortable feel, not overcrowding it too much (like he sometimes tends to do - see his "Accouplements pour voyeurs" of the same year) and thus giving it a more personal dimension. Beautiful use of red color dominating some of the set-pieces and also used on some details such as pieces of clothing or the fingernails - all as a kinky accents to the natural skin tones. The mirrors always play an important part extending a rather cliché voyeur theme so popular at the period, especially mesmerizing and transfixing when the hostess danses closely to a large trumeau, leaving a mark of her wet postcoital belly on it. Morgane is a star, very appealing and becoming with her hair done like a pageboy. Some surprisingly dynamic extreme close-ups of her can also be enjoyed.
The fetish icon Brigitte Lahaie makes her usual obligatory appearance here as a dominating lesbian somewhat reluctant at first to indulge into a heterosexual relationship, but ultimately surrendering to all vice in a penultimate orgy scene. A rather awkward attempt have been made to refresh her looks as she wears a crow like black bob cut wig. One often feels that she is merely on a contract usage.
The only discouraging aspect I find in these french flicks of the period is that they are often too visually sophisticated and artificial to become really arousing. Mostly balancing on the verge of becoming unbearably pretentious. Unlike the more life-like productions from across the ocean made at the same time. But then again it's rather characteristic of the whole oeuvre of french cinema.