A delirious waft of midnight jasmine from Jesus Franco. Do not bother with this one if you require a film to be coherent. Do watch if you have ever appreciated having a fever.
Anna is a stripper in a so-called second class "boîte de nuit" in Zagreb, when she falls into the devices of a bisexual adventuress. Anna is installed in Cynthia's mansion and passed off as the "Princess of Istria". Well, she certainly is a princess of Istria in some sense, not in a sense any College of Arms would recognize though.
Anna is taught to be Cynthia's odalisque, Kali, and Anarkali, if it's even fair to attach words to these various creations. There is an ultimate plan that provides some level of suspense. But in an atmosphere of heavy incense and nudity, in the fabric night garden of the pleasure dome, it becomes less and less important.
The movie has a wildness to it, an ambiguity, an editing that makes no logic but every sense. It is often fanciful in a delightful way, a playmate describes how after sex he feels like jumping out of the window and running on the rooftops. The movie is comfortable and familiar with the sexually-drenched mindset in a way I have only seen in the films of Yann Gonzalez.
It is said that this movie is stitched together from unused footage originating from more than one movie, and that makes sense to me, there is a whole thread with Soledad Miranda and Andrea Montchal as the eerie "neighbours", that certainly doesn't look shot in the same neighbourhood or even country. This is used to great suspenseful effect and is tied together in the end, although these players never appear with the other players on screen. The segment has a wonderful Manchette-ian feel to it "life is all s___" daubed on the wall of the hideout in bright red made me think of his anarchistic novel Nada.
It feels and is fragmentary, but the fragments are glorious, there's a scene where a glittering skirt appears and disappears, swaying in the darkness and then there's a great perspective shift. The movie can be appreciated for its visual trickery alone.
Anna is a stripper in a so-called second class "boîte de nuit" in Zagreb, when she falls into the devices of a bisexual adventuress. Anna is installed in Cynthia's mansion and passed off as the "Princess of Istria". Well, she certainly is a princess of Istria in some sense, not in a sense any College of Arms would recognize though.
Anna is taught to be Cynthia's odalisque, Kali, and Anarkali, if it's even fair to attach words to these various creations. There is an ultimate plan that provides some level of suspense. But in an atmosphere of heavy incense and nudity, in the fabric night garden of the pleasure dome, it becomes less and less important.
The movie has a wildness to it, an ambiguity, an editing that makes no logic but every sense. It is often fanciful in a delightful way, a playmate describes how after sex he feels like jumping out of the window and running on the rooftops. The movie is comfortable and familiar with the sexually-drenched mindset in a way I have only seen in the films of Yann Gonzalez.
It is said that this movie is stitched together from unused footage originating from more than one movie, and that makes sense to me, there is a whole thread with Soledad Miranda and Andrea Montchal as the eerie "neighbours", that certainly doesn't look shot in the same neighbourhood or even country. This is used to great suspenseful effect and is tied together in the end, although these players never appear with the other players on screen. The segment has a wonderful Manchette-ian feel to it "life is all s___" daubed on the wall of the hideout in bright red made me think of his anarchistic novel Nada.
It feels and is fragmentary, but the fragments are glorious, there's a scene where a glittering skirt appears and disappears, swaying in the darkness and then there's a great perspective shift. The movie can be appreciated for its visual trickery alone.