The Italian sex film is an industry in itself. Here’s one of the genre’s more interesting entries, from Salvatore Sempari, one of its key directors. THE DARK SIDE OF LOVE manages to transcend a conventional young-man-seduced-by-his-older-governess premise through slick direction and a truly perverse storyline that incorporates anonymous sex, voyeurism, infidelity and even incest. It’s a strange, disturbing and quite erotic film, watchable even by those outside the rain-jacketed crowd.
The Package
THE DARK SIDE OF LOVE arrives via the British video
outfit Jezebel, the “evil sister” of the popular Redemption
label. Redemption distributes obscure horror movies with
colorful and distinctive packaging (their releases include films
by such respected horrormeisters as
Jean Rollin,
Mario Bava and
even Clive Barker), but the Jezebel line keeps it afloat.
Jezebel re-releases forgotten (and, more often than not,
forgettable) British and Italian sex comedies with the same
beautiful packaging that characterizes the Redemption videos.
THE DARK SIDE OF LOVE is something of an anomaly in the
Jezebel series: a pretty good movie. It’s a product if the
lucrative Italian sex film industry, which has turned out
respected auteurs like
Tino Brass, but is mostly
responsible for those terrible soft core flicks that often show
up late at night on cable TV. Most of them are instantly
forgettable. TDSOL, made in 1986, is not--it’s actually extremely
difficult to shake off.
The Story
A sixteen-year-old boy (Lorenzo Lena) is confined to
his recently deceased grandmother’s house after seriously
injuring his neck. His sexy twenty five-year-old sister Patrizia
(played by Italian sex star Monica Guerritore) is dispatched
from her home in Venice to stay with him. Things start out
innocently enough, with Patrizia taking the lad on trips to the
beach and keeping him company, but soon take a turn for the
perverted.
Sex-mad Patrizia can’t keep her lustful thoughts to
herself, and enthusiastically relates her more interesting
sexual experiences to her naive little brother. It’s not long
before he encourages Patrizia to act out her erotic tales. This
she does, first by having an anonymous tryst with a man in a
movie theater and then moving on to some kinkier acts with a
mild-mannered (though horny) college professor. She even invites
a blonde model home to further inflame her brother’s libido.
Naturally, the sexual tension between brother and sister reaches
its apex, but only after Patrizia runs off and marries a
good-looking jeweler. In the happy(?) ending, she decides to
keep her now thoroughly corrupted little brother on as an
extra-marital lover.
The Direction
Salvatore Sempari has been one of the Italian sex film
industry’s guiding lights since the seventies. TDSOL is surely
one of his better works (also worth seeing is his stunningly
perverted 1976 historical fuckfest SCANDAL, a.k.a. SUBMISSION).
While by no means great, it strikes a careful balance between
the all-out sleaze of
Joe D’Amato (ELEVEN DAYS, ELEVEN NIGHTS)
and the classier approach of Tinto Brass (CALIGULA, THE KEY). In
keeping with the particulars of the genre he helped initiate,
Sempari photographs all of this as if it were a perfume
commercial (the cinematography is by the great Dante Spinotte),
complete with some gorgeous Venice scenery that wouldn’t look
out of place in a travel brochure.
Surprisingly, what’s most effective about Sempari’s
approach is its subtlety. The nudity, while abundant, isn’t
nearly as plentiful as you might expect, and the onscreen sex is
pretty scant. Sempari’s low-key treatment of a morbid storyline
packs a greater punch than just about anything else on the
sex-movie market.
Vital Statistics
THE DARK SIDE OF LOVE
Globe Films/Dania Film International/Jezebel Video (UK)
Director: Salvatore Sempari
Producer: Pietro Innocenzi
Screenplay: Riccardo Gniome, Edith Bruck, Salvatore Samperi
Cinematography: Dante Spinotte
Editor: Sergio Montanari
Cast: Monica Guerritore, Lorenzo Lena, Gianfranco Manfredi,
Gilla Novak, Saverio Vallone