Boccaccio '70 Blu-ray Review
Four tales of sex in 1960s Italy.
Reviewed by Casey Broadwater, October 21, 2011
In his famously bawdy collection of 100 tales,
The Decameron, humanist author Giovanni Boccaccio cast a critical eye on 14th century Italian
culture, mocking religious hypocrisy in the wake of the Black Plague, detailing the differences between newly defined social classes, and attempting to
change the country's Church-stultified attitudes towards sex by portraying love as complicated and the source of much folly, but entirely natural—that
is, not shameful or sin-ridden.
In 1962, some six-hundred years later, four of Italy's greatest filmmakers—Mario Monicelli, Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti, and Vittorio de Sica—
would borrow the frame-story device of
The Decameron and take a similarly askew glance at the pretensions and sexual standards of their own
time in
Boccaccio '70, a four-part anthology film that's sexy and strange, elegant and comic, sometimes all at once. Made after Italy's post-war
prosperity began to kick in, but before the cultural revolution of the mid-to-late 1960s, the film documents a society in transition, with widening
generational/gender gaps and morality—especially sexual morality—in a state of flux. The film itself seems caught between two times; neither prudish
nor especially explicit, it might best be described as coy, batting its eyelashes and beckoning to the audience with a come-hither gaze. It's damn near
irresistible. No one did sexy, nonchalant cool like the Italian directors of the 1960s.
In Act I,
Renzo e Luciana, director Mario Monicelli introduces us to an errand boy (Germano Gilioli) and a bookkeeper (the gorgeous Marisa
Solinas) who are deeply, secretly in love. Luciana's been feeling nauseated, and suspects she may be pregnant, so the two get wedded in a
makeshift, spur-of-the-moment ceremony that's met with disapproval by her stern parents. Since they don't make enough on their meager salaries
to buy a place of their own, Renzo and Luciana have to move into her family's cramped apartment, which leaves them no privacy on their wedding
night—or any other night, for that matter. The sexual tension is palpable. All they want to do is
do it, but the walls are thin, dad is playing
poker in the next room with his buds, and someone is blaring a boxing match on television. The mood ain't exactly right. Making matters worse,
they have to keep their nuptials a secret from their boss, a lecher who forbids his female employees from getting hitched and making babies,
partially because there was no maternity leave in those days, but mostly because the guy wants to seduce his workers himself. At its core, the film
is about pressure—the pressure to have (or not have) premarital sex, the pressure to get hitched if you get knocked up, and the financial pressure of
being young and immaturely married—and the sexually stymied couple is portrayed beautifully by Gilioli and Salinas as horny, frustrated, and not
quite in control of their own lives.
In Act II, Fellini's
Le tentazioni del dottor Antonio, the false virtue under fire is prudery—specifically the fiery, religious brand of indignation
towards sex that's typically the result of repression and guilt. Peppino de Filippo stars as Antonio Mazzuolo, a self-righteous citizen who takes it upon
himself to crusade for public decency. He's a pious tyrant, basically, the kind of guy who goes down to Lover's Lane to shine bright lights on the
couples making out in their cars. What really gets his goat, though, is when an advertising agency erects a billboard in the vacant lot across from his
home, with the image of a sultry, large-chested sex-bomb blond—Anita Ekberg, looking like a precursor to Anna-Nicole Smith—reclining bare-legged
on a couch and holding a frosty glass of milk. Antonio calls it "an offense to the most sacred aspect of maternity"—breastfeeding—and makes
it his mission to get the sign taken down. His quixotically sanctimonious obsession leads gradually to all-out insanity, as Antonio imagines the
woman coming down out of the billboard and stomping around town, a curvy giantess intent on exposing her lewdness to the innocent and pure of
mind. It's Fellini's take on
Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, and it's every bit as bizarre as you'd imagine, with double entendre imagery galore
—see the fire hose spraying the breasts on the billboard—and a great deal of comedy at the intersection of the supposedly sacred and so-called
profane.
Luchino Visconti's contribution,
Il lavoro, is the film's weakest
and strongest entry. Weakest because it doesn't fit as well with the
others—it's a rather serious, dialogue-heavy parlor drama, while the others are essentially sex farces—and strongest because it's the film that best
stands alone if viewed separately. Like several of Visconti's films, it's about the unsatisfied lives of the rich and fabulously bored. In this case, it
follows the crumbling relationship of an aristocratic couple who married for convenience and mutual wealth. The husband, Ottavio (Tomas Milian), a
count, has just become embroiled in a Silvio Berlusconi-esque sex scandal—he was caught frolicking with high-class prostitutes—and he's being
lambasted daily in the press. This has obviously upset his wife—played by the supremely elegant Romy Schneider—who has retreated to her room,
comforted by a litter of kittens. (Really.) The
contessa is convinced she's going to find some kind of job and prove to her husband and father
that she's worth more than her good looks, but this proves difficult. Ennui-afflicted, she spends most of the story getting dressed, undressed, and
dressed again, putting on a series of fancy outfits as if these superficial changes could somehow give her meaning. Schneider's performance aches
with sad beauty, and as always, Visconti is a master of control and perception, finding the chips in the gilded veneer of a moneyed life. In the context
of the other parts,
Il lavoro does slow down
Boccaccio '70 considerably, but the ending—which I wouldn't dare spoil—is the most
poignant moment in the entire film.
The final act, Vittorio de Sica's sweet and funny
La riffa—
The Raffle—is perhaps most faithful to the bawdy tone of
The
Decameron. Appropriately, it stars that bombshell embodiment of female sex, Sophia Loren, who looks positively
fertile here, hips
sashaying to a kettledrum beat and breasts spilling out of her cinched and fitted top. She plays Zoe, the unobtainable object of desire at a small-town
carnival, where she runs a shooting gallery, scrapping together just enough money each month to get by. When her family gets slammed with ten
year's worth of back taxes they can't afford to pay, they hatch a sexual scheme, selling raffle tickets for the ultimate prize—one night alone with
Zoe. The various lurkers and male chauvinists who haunt the carnival are obviously enthused, and have no troubled parting with their money for a
shot at, shall we say, sowing their oats in that fallow field. But of course,
nothing goes according to plan, especially not after Zoe falls for an
itinerant cowboy who saves her from an on-the-loose bull. The wayward bovine is naturally attracted to her red shirt, which she quickly removes,
revealing a slinky black va-va-voom bustier that can barely contain her, and F.Y.I., this isn't the last time she takes off her top. When the film
debuted in New York, the always starchy New York Times critic Bosley Crowther had this to say about
La riffa: "The display of Miss Loren's
figure is excessive to the point of tedium, and the portrayals of her various grunting suitors are more callow than comical." In the spirit of
Boccaccio '70, I'll close with this: It sounds to me like old Bosley just needed to get laid.
Boccaccio '70 Blu-ray, Video Quality
If you've picked up any of Kino-Lorber's other recent Italian releases--
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow,
Marriage Italian Style, or
Sunflower—you'll have a good idea of what to expect from
Boccaccio '70's 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer. In short, a hands-off
presentation that hasn't been fully restored—you'll see occasional specks, flecks, hairs stuck in the gate, and other bits of debris—but one that hasn't
been tampered with either. There's no digital noise reduction here, no edge enhancement, no boosting or tweaking of any kind. Sharpness is hindered
somewhat by the non-anamorphic lenses and grainy film stock the directors used, but overall clarity is greatly improved, revealing a finer degree detail
and texture throughout. While there are some slight color fluctuations in the image from time to time, these are mild and not in the least distracting.
For the most part, color is satisfyingly rich, with good contrast and black levels that are balanced and consistent. And though the film is nearly three and
a half hours long, it sits comfortably on a dual-layer 50 GB disc, with no overt signs of compression. Sure, the film could certainly look better with a full,
frame-by-frame restoration, but the sad fact is that not every film can get that kind of premiere treatment. All things considered, though,
Boccaccio
'70 looks wonderful on Blu-ray, and looks dramatically better here than it did in prior DVD releases.
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