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ผลงานของสุดยอดผู้กำกับในตำนาน
Joe
D''Amato
Overlong loop carrier set in Venice
by lor_ (New York, New York)
THE VENEXIANA is something of a bait and switch: from
the trailer it vaguely looks like a lavish porn romance
set in Venice with everybody in period costumes, but
turns out to be merely a series of 12 sex vignettes
crudely strung together as fantasies of a lady writer
visiting the wet burg.
Title is stolen from Mauro Bolognini''s classic of
softcore eroticism LA VENEXIANA, which I was privileged
to watch in 35mm some 25 years ago at the Cannes Film
Market. It showcased Laura Antonelli and Monica
Guerritore in a 16th Century tale, quite beautifully
filmed and unfortunately not appreciated since it was
subsequently relegated to strictly video exposure.
But instead of a remake, Joe D''Amato has his video
taking place in modern Venice, with nearly all of the
dozen sex scenes having zero to do with the city. They
are generic, though seem to have been freshly shot (all
on video) rather than merely being recycled loops.
Wanda Curtis, who I enjoyed recently in her U.S. guest
shot on Michael Ninn''s video ANAIS EXPOSED, is very
impressive as the busty but innocent looking heroine,
dressed in period wig and costume as she looks around
Venice in touristy fashion aboard a gondola, or sits at
her writing desk concocting sexy vignettes.
Most of her stories star Philippe Dean, who must have
been really tired out after all the sex scenes and
ejaculations asked of him by maestro Joe. Unfortunately
for the viewer, the two-hours-plus is taken up with
mainly boring and pointless such episodes, ultimately
amounting to filler. By way of contrast, one only has to
watch Cameron Grant''s classic EROTIC VISIONS, in which
each segment seems to be competing with all the others
for "best in show", in a wonderfully crafted program. (I
thought of Grant because he co-directed with D''Amato
PASSION IN VENICE, a far superior earlier work than THE
VENEXIANA.)
Example of the puerile content of the vignettes: (1)
Anita Blond has sex with a fake blind boy in the
bathroom of a railroad station to lead off the picture
-it looks like a loop I once saw in an Anita Rinaldi
video. In second segment, a guy donates sperm at a
hospital run by a nun (!), imagining the nun to be
having sex with him as his source of stimulation.
Erica Bella briefly shines as the wife of a Mafia
informant who makes love with the superintendent in
charge of his protection. Karim plays a "slave" (that''s
an extreme exaggeration) of a blonde, who he services on
a pool table.
Dean pops up as a school professor who gets in trouble
for disciplining his students, but later solves that by
having sex with them, all in the inverted logic of porn.
The final sex scene has Wanda imagining a tiny puppet
coming to life in the form of Casanova (the real
Casanova), to service her.
I just didn''t see any point to this ephemeral nonsense,
and would much rather have seen D''Amato tackle the more
difficult task of remaking Bolognini''s film in XXX
format. But that would have taken considerable talent
and a sizable budget.
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