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A restrained, but more tolerable effort from Deodato
No matter how many sides there might be to his talent as a filmmaker, no matter how many different movies he's made or how much time passes by, the Italian director Ruggero Deodato will forever be remembered (notoriously, that is) as the man who shocked the world with the controversial and extremely graphic in-your-face thriller Cannibal Holocaust from 1980. The movie was about a group of TV-reporters who went on an expedition deep into the Amazon in order to locate a cannibal tribe living isolated from the rest of the world. The crew mysteriously disappeared and in an effort to track them down, the only thing that was found was a couple of movie reals documenting the reasons for their gruesome demise (sounds a bit like Blair Witch Project, doesn't it?).
Apparently Cannibal Holocaust was meant as an attack on the sensation-seeking media's preoccupation with and the publics hunger for violence, but in the end the movie turned out to be no better than the people it tried to accuse. Much due to its nihilistic tone and the way it wallowed in depictions of barbaric rape, forced abortions and ritual punishments - over time the legendary still with the naked, impaled native girl has become synonymous with the crusade against Video-Nasties in the early 80's and the effect was in fact so convincing, that it even started suspicions that people had been sacrificed for real on the set (which is more than wildly improbable, especially when studying the particular sequence a little bit closer).
However, the above mentioned scenes of cruelty could (to a certain extend) have been excused and accepted as valid artistic means, had it not been for the countless, nauseating close ups of animals actually being tortured or killed on camera, a fact that torpedoed Cannibal Holocaust and its alleged agenda for good. Deodato followed up this slaughter-fest with a Last House on the Left rip-off, the similarly titled The House on the Edge of the Park (which also starred David Hess, reprising his role from the 1972 original), that cut down on the gore and upped the sadistic, sexual violence. And a couple of years later he turned to the adventure genre with the action film Cut and Run spiced up with his specific trademarks - and an excellent B-movie cast.
Having been subjected to all these unimaginable perversions makes it (almost) impossible to fathom that the same director helmed the sunbathed 1975 thriller Ondata di piacere (written by the director and Lamberto Bava, son of the brilliant horror maestro Mario) which in comparison with his later works seems unbelievably restrained - and with some surprising, amusing touches along the way. It's still very difficult to come by Deodatos earlier westerns, adventures and musicals (no, you read that correctly) from the 60's and therefore impossible to make a definite statement, yet this feature in question must still be regarded as one of the directors most easily accessible and least offending to date. Make no mistake, though - Ondata di piacere may be very mild in the violence department, but it still contains lots and lots of gratuitous nudity - at least enough to blow a fuse in Hugh Hefners pacemaker.
And thankfully much of the bare skin is by courtesy of a young Silvia Dionisio - one of the most stunning and radiant actresses ever to come out of Italy - who stars as Barbara in a colorful story of power, lust and revenge. While drifting around an exotic seaside resort with her boyfriend Irem (a stone-faced but appropriately rough- and scruffy-looking Al Cliver) she spots the spoiled and disgustingly wealthy playboy Giorgio (John Steiner) acting like he's the center of the universe. A possessive upper class brat with a strong propensity to violence who's constantly exploiting everyone around him, especially his repressed girlfriend Silvia (Elizabeth Turner), whom he treats like nothing more than a sex toy that has to be at his disposal wherever and whenever he has the urge.
John Steiner, in a wonderfully hammy performance, pulls absolutely no punches in his portrayal of this truly menacing and ever smirking bully you just love to hate, but ultimately want to see being taught a lesson he will not soon forget. Which is where Barbara and Irem come in. Thanks to a clever scheme they manage to get themselves invited to a cruise on Giorgio's yacht, and with the four protagonists on board, a sly power (and class) struggle commence and is played out primarily within this limited setting. What ensues is generous doses of sex, lounging, sex, more sex, a little bit of scuba diving, and yet more sex to keep things lively and the many sleaze fans happy. But these scenes are often carried through with a sense of underlying danger in order to build up the tension between the characters, so they're not always just for show.
When Ondata di piacere never quite hits the mark it's mainly due to the thinly plotted and loosely structured storyline that holds almost no surprises or plot twists for its audience, which is a bit of a letdown since this is supposed to be thriller. The confined space of the yacht isn't used to its full, claustrophobic potential (as in the far superior Dead Calm from 1989 starring Sam Neill and a stellar Nicole Kidman) and a true sense of dread is therefore only experienced in a few scenes. But what primarily prevents the movie from becoming the riveting ride it should have been, is the fact that the backgrounds for Barbara and Irem are never explained, thus making it a bit hard to understand their motivations and really get involved in their enterprise. To see them just as a couple of avenging angels who can't stand injustice is too far fetched and unbelievable as well.
Nevertheless, there's still a good amount of enjoyment to be found in the overtly risqué shenanigans, and there's no doubt that Silvia Dionisio (who actually does a commendable job with what she has to work with) is an obvious and outstanding, redeeming quality. I might as well confess, yours truly is deeply fascinated with this otherworldly goddess who is able to convey a sense of pure innocence while looking irresistibly seductive at the same time - a talent she makes frequent use of here. This intensifies the already steamy, erotic embraces, and add to this, that when Ruggero Deodato directed the then 24-year-old Dionisio in the daring, promiscuous sex scenes, they were actually husband and wife in real life - then you've got an audacious movie that sends waves of (admittedly guilty) pleasures right into every corner of your living room. Fans of Silvia and spicy, exotic soft-core cinema need not look any further - and everybody else: Look elsewhere. 
Picture: 5/10
Sadly, it shines through that the film elements used for this transfer have been in less than pristine condition. The picture, which is presented here in a non-anamorphic aspect ratio of 1.62:1, appears grainy and somewhat soft in many scenes, and sometimes the color balance varies between faded or washed out looking and slightly oversaturated. On the plus side, scratches and print damage is kept to a minimum and portions of the movie actually look OK with natural looking colors, nice contrasts and decent (but not perfect) sharpness. And there were no evident signs of compression artifacts. All in all, this is a serviceable presentation of the movie, but nothing more.
Sound: 5/10
The original Italian soundtrack is presented here in Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono. While not exactly being dynamic or exceptional in any way it gets the job done without any distracting noise or hissing to speak of, but even though the dialog and the music comes through clear enough, it is somewhat too thin and dark sounding for its own good. Oh, well.
Extras: 7/10
The amount of supplemental material isn't overwhelming, but what's there is in fact really good. First up is a documentary called Lo tsunami erotico (Erotic tidal waves) (16.53 min) which features the very relaxed and pleasant director Ruggero Deodato, who relates how he got involved with the movie (which he in fact didn't really want to do at first) as well as how awkward and uncomfortable he felt directing his own wife while she was in the nude. Al Cliver also appears for a few sparse comments, Lamberto Bava talks about how he met and got to work with Deodato, and finally a very sympathetic, straightforward and talkative Saverio Deodato (Ruggeros son, who actually shares a scene with his mother, Silvia Dionisio, in the very beginning of Ondata di piacere) reminisce about how he grew up in the movie industry and how his parents tried to persuade him not to become an actor (my favorite bit is where he asks the interviewer: "Do I have to call her Silvia?"). In a video clip that runs 4.44 minutes, four erotic sequences from the movie are played in succession, but here they are presented as they're seen in the even racier English cut with shots not contained in the version featured on this DVD - especially the lesbian encounter between Turner and Dionisio has been considerably prolonged and is much more sensual than before. Alas, the scenes seem to be culled from a VHS-tape and the quality obviously leaves something to be desired, but it's not all that bad and perfectly watchable and it's a good thing that Raro Video decided to include this feature on the disc. Completely unrelated to the movie itself, but very interesting and enjoyable all the same, is a montage (21.25 min) of old commercials (directed by Ruggero Deodato) that can be watched with or without commentary from the director himself (this is, by the way, the only extra feature that doesn't come with English subtitles). To round things off is a biography and a filmography of the director, and finally a small booklet is included inside the DVD-case, with text in both Italian and English plus a couple of pictures of Silvia Dionisio (the same from the back cover of the DVD, but for some reason they don't seem to be taken from Ondata di piacere). Anyway, Dionisio is topless, so ...
An excellent package from the fine people at Raro Video, who will hopefully continue to release more hard to come by titles like this with English subtitles in the future.
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