made with
google translate
sorry for the mistakes
La bambola
It takes a 'certain'
hand to record Orvieto's cathedral and pass it off as just anything.
Like a suburban church. It also takes a 'certain' hand to make an
erotic film without rhyme or reason that even manages to get worse
after an already bad start. Maestro Ninì Grassia is capable of
this and much more, and with this 1991 film he reaches great heights of
absurdity.
It has to be said that if he had made a film like this in recent years
he would have, at the very least, been arrested. Rightly so.
Grassia in fact begins by talking about rapes (which are to be accepted
because one character likes it) against thirteen-year-old girls. Scenes
of violence are shown to us (violence as it were) but don't worry,
there are no underage in this film and Grassia does not even make the
effort to rejuvenate the actresses, he uses them to grapple with
traumatic memories.
But hold on, hold on. Maybe I'm going the Grassia route and making a
bit too much of a fuss. Let's take it slow. And let's start at the
beginning.
The doll of the title is Marca (not a typo, she is named Marco's
rare female), played by Deborah Calì. She is a nice, open-minded
18-year-old girl, loved by everyone.
We find her as she provokes her Italian teacher, who is intensely in
love with her, with a question, then we see her in the company of her
boyfriend, who later and without much logic breaks up with her. And
finally while she is studying with two friends to whom she confesses
that she was raped at the age of 13 (but she enjoyed it, she says).
Which also happened to one of the other two. All right.
You would think that this opening interspersed with sex scenes of the
three of them with their boyfriends would have something to do with the
plot. Actually, no. It seems to be just a ploy to lengthen the minutes.
Because we then discover that our Marca lives with her mother, who runs
a scrappy suburban bar, and with her boyfriend, the classic man of the
underworld. The mother attempts suicide (and we do not know why) and
above all, the man deceives Marca and takes her to a brothel, which
looks like a farmhouse, where the young woman is segregated and forced
into prostitution.
The clients, although a truly terrible place, are important and
sometimes 'elegant' people. Marca tries in vain to escape and one day
the professor from the opening scenes shows up at the place. He has sex
with Marca, who is blindfolded, but after enjoying himself he helps the
girl escape. Happy ending with the villain dying and Marca's two
friends, who also absurdly ended up in the brothel, being freed. At
least it seems so.
'La bambola' is truly a terrible film. It has a plot that makes no
sense and a pace that slows down minute by minute. Grassia, who also
indulges in a cameo like the great directors, so he has something in
common with them, as usual makes no effort whatsoever to make the
scenarios a little believable. Nor does he put the slightest effort
behind the camera.
Luckily for him, there is Deborah Calì, who is certainly not a
great actress, but she does her part and is, of course, very, very
beautiful. But that's not enough to save the whole thing.