Beyond Love and Evil - Jacques Scandelari - (1971) DVD

A young man follows his fiance to a house where sexual anarchy reigns. If you assigned a pretentious French director to make a movie out of DeSade's "Philosophy in the Bedroom" (which is the film's title in France), and use touches of Fellini, "2001: A Space Odyssey", "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" and "Modesty Blaise," you might end up with something like this absurd, kinetic, free-form, fun-n-furious piece of mod, sexy, kaleidoscopic Eurotrash.

This wonderfully silly mash of "Laugh-In" and DeSade consists of, but is not limited to: unending orgies by naked people with painted faces, edited abruptly and artily; snakes, porcupines, rabbits and other animals laying about during sex; big black men hopping into bed with small white women; outrageous homosexuals; a woman masturbating with live fish and squid; folks watching a madman rape a chick in a dungeon; women prisoners sent screaming, semi-naked into the woods, to be chased down by wild dogs; people laying about erotically in strange, art-deco/op-art/futuristic rooms while moaning; a wedding is followed by a screw-for-all; a nude conga line; a downbeat ending in which the straight hero suffers a torturous fate straight from the Inferno.

Like a child trying to be sexy but not succeeding, this film is more silly, charming and even endearing than dirty, but has a hell of a good time while trying to be very, very bad. It could even be argued than Russ Meyer must have seen this right before smoking some weed and co-scripting his epic of the age, "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls". Either way, there sure was something in the air. A quasi-surreal, all-nude masterpiece: "Your world is repulsive to me; I prefer to ignore it."

Quality Rating Score:
Questions? Use the Online Information Request feature