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FEMALE ANIMAL
Produced by Jerry Gross and Nicholas Demetroules
Directed by Jerry Gross
Director of Photography - George Zimmerman
Edited by Sidney Katz and William GaddisAngelique - Arlene Tiger
After comparing both new and old erotic cinema, I'm beginning to think there's no inspiration left. Maybe today's moviemakers have lost their aspirations, and not just their inspiration. There's little concern for artistic content, today's movies are merely bush for bucks.
I've gone on record in the past stating that's there's nothing wrong with such an attitude. Maybe I"m getting old, but that attitude is starting to change. You could blame much of the about face on Seduction Cinema's Retro Seduction line of older, more influential titles of erotica from the 60' s and 70's. Even when the selling point is the flesh, there's still a strong desire in these older works to tell good story.
FEMALE ANIMAL isn't a movie I liked, but it's one I come away from respecting a great deal. It's skinful exploitation masquerading as art, as DVD commentator Sam Sherman tells us matter-of-factly, designed to appeal to a broader audience, both the art house crowd and the raincoat crowd. The titles are in Spanish, with fictionalized Spanish-sounding names, giving it a foreign flavor and thus making the erotic nature of the material more palatable for mainstream audiences.
Pure marketing. And genius at that.
Underneath the veneer of faux-intellectualism, is a classic tale of the bourgeois elite putting those less fortunate under the sexual yoke.
Angelique, a young prostitute suffering through her daily trials, is offered a "legitimate" position as a maid by a gentleman whose driver ran over her bicycle. Where as a prostitute, Angelique was the one in a position of power, she's now removed from her world to one where providing her favors dehumanizes her to those who use them. At first struggling against the collapse of her identity, with a "what do I have to loose" mentality, she eventually gives herself to whoever is willing to take her.
The entire concept is a pretty male take on the view of female sexual awakenings, and a chauvinistic one at that.
But at least there's a story present. So many of today's erotic titles contain just enough story to link together the sex. They aren't much more than a penetration shot away from porno. At least with some effective comedy you can get the occasional laugh.
FEMALE ANIMAL is dead serious in tone, and with it's retro-vibe, makes for some unintentionally humorous viewing. Some now dated concepts, which I'm sure were risque for their time, such as priest whose character is introduced while in the throws of passion with Angelique, lack the satirical punch I'm sure they may have once had.
But at least the film is trying to do something. There's irony. There's story. There's a good deal more what can be found in most of today's erotica.
The DVD release by Retro-Seduction Cinema is beautiful. Panavision widescreen with almost no noticeable picture flaws. As mentioned before, the commentary is by Distributor Sam Sherman who again provides one of the most detailed histories on a film I've ever heard, right behind THE NAUGHTY STEWARDESSES. There's also the usual EI trailer vault for both Retro and modern Seduction Cinema titles.
As a bonus, Seduction has included THE MASTER'S PLAYTHING, a short from Bill Hellfire staring Misty Mundae and Ruby LaRocca. Like the modern re-working of ROXANNA, the goal here is to take the themes from the DVD's primary feature and infuse them with today's more deviant sensibilities. With the modern Seduction Cinema line's predilection towards lesbianism, the results are far more disturbing than FEMALE ANIMAL's chauvinistic approach ever thought to be.