Contes immoraux

The freak La Bête stitch-in wet my wound for a full-length cray cray replay, thrusting OG MudBorow to climactic heights of tumescent transcendence.

The Ballet of blasphemy; and, some pretty nice asses.

Whoop-di-fucking-doo.

It's undeniably off the charts how male-gazey this is. At the same time, if you know you're in for a borderline pornographic sexploitation fantasy, the almost overbearing, gratuitous nudity and rather unusual scenarios might titillate you. And yet, although great shots, good ideas and zany humour are present, variety, storytelling and messaging are not; more laughs, surrealism and exaggeration would have made a difference, but as is it's merely a softcore curio with an uncomfortable perspective.

As with most anthology films, from the most commercial to most radically avant-garde, a glorious mixed bag. Really like La Bête -- such a bizarre surrealistic erotica -- and the last short and the rest is sort of hit and miss. Great cinematography all over, though.

'The Tide' is by far the most well considered and executed of the four vignettes, in which Borowczyk seems to be exploring the idea of the rhythms of nature as a potentially powerful way to be inducted into the realm of human sexuality. As with 'La Bête' it is very much about ejaculation as consummation. The other three vignettes are disappointing as Borowczyk is intent on simply 'shocking' the audience with increasingly sacrilegious imagery, which is to say it is gratuitous cinema.

boring pornos

Some interesting 'period piece' moments -- the mood of the 1970s is very strong in this one -- do not counterbalance the reality that this is soft porn masquerading as art-house fare.

"La Bête" is fantastic as a short and hugely superior to it's overlong feature version. Other four stories are unfortunately not very memorable compared to that. // Scores - La Maree: 70; Therese Philosophe: 40; La Bete: 95; Erzsebet Bathory: 60; Lucrezia Borgia: 50

Dull and exploitative.