Story Movie
Valerie is left alone in her cousin's house while he is away on business. One evening she calls her friend Sophie to pass the time. During the night, Sophie wakes up to find that the house has been broken into by thieves. She calls her friend Fred, but when he arrives at the mansion, Sophie is not there....
Review 4K Movie
The romantic filmmaker Jean Rollin financed one of his iconic films, The Iron Rose, himself, consciously accepting that it would be a box office failure, but wanting to create. In art, and especially in such a personal art form, one can only earn a name, a reputation, and belated recognition from a small audience, so the artist was forced to sign a contract with a studio to shoot a whole bunch of commercial projects “for adults.” This is how the mischievous Michel Gentil came into being. However, the pseudonym is not so simple, as it is only part of the full name of Monsieur Jean Michel Rollin Roth Le Gentil. So, the first two works in his new role were still erotic. Fly Me the French Way is the second work in this pair. There is a significantly shortened and more chaste American version, but we are not looking for easy ways out, right? Therefore, we are presented with an almost two-hour film, which is quite long for a simple erotic production. Despite the presence of comedic elements, the plot seems endless. I agree that it would be an exaggeration to attribute the uncomplicated events on the screen to a full-fledged plot.
It all starts with the introduction, where we meet the charming heroine Valerie, who moves into the apartment of her cousin, who has left on business. Working as a journalist, he has obtained some racy photos compromising the mysterious Malvina. No, this is not the blue-haired Malvina from our favorite fairy tale, but a real villainess who also works as a priestess of a secret cult that kidnaps people, organizes orgies, and tortures them in an old villa... Oh, don't think this is a detective story or some kind of intrigue. The film has nothing of the sort in store. Everything is subordinated to the incredibly simple motif of a typical exploitation film with characters resembling puppets with a single brain cell. For example, the heroine is bored alone, her friend comes to visit her, and the fun begins. A friend comes to visit the friend, and the mischief continues. A maid sent by someone else appears in the frame—more mischief. A real servant appears—more mischief. Here is a modern priestess, here are her assistants, here are the kidnapped “poor things” — I think it's clear what will happen next? How could it be otherwise, when the maid's miniskirt is shorter than everyone else's, the villainess walks around in a transparent outfit in public, and the characters rarely get dressed just to immediately undress again! It is no coincidence that the film is known by its second title, “Sexual Bacchanalia,” as it very accurately describes the erotic chaos taking place within the apartment and the country house.
It could have been not just drawn out, but also unbearably dreary. However, things are a little different, especially when viewed through the prism of the director's personality. The fact is that Rollena is usually associated with a melancholic figure, gloomily and solitarily wandering in a retro coat somewhere among old gravestones. Such an image may be mistakenly formed if one takes into account his authorial films. But this is a misconception, even though he wore retro clothes and glorified decadence. In his interviews and according to the recollections of his colleagues from the set, the creator appears to be a cheerful, fun-loving person who is always smiling and has a good sense of humor. He was not lacking in self-irony! Therefore, when creating eroticism, the author fills it with a light atmosphere of fooling around, where everything seems to be happening for fun and is not hidden from the viewer. Everything is deliberately bad, to the point of making all the participants smile. Everyone barely manages to hold back their grins, uttering absurd dialogues and trying to show emotions out of place, while the spicy scenes resemble anecdotal somersaults in a pile of perpetually giggling bodies imitating something incomprehensible, but certainly not passion. Speaking of bodies, the genre does oblige. Joelle Keur, invited to play the lead role, sets the right playful tone for the entire production, no worse than the coquettish music, which sounds like beautiful airy melodies or bold jazz improvisations. She is indeed a pretty, flexible, uninhibited girl and, most importantly, a cheerful one, who never loses her smile in any situation. Surprise at her friend's kidnapping or fear with chains on her hands—she never stops smiling! The director worked with her in three films, and very successfully. Such European exploitation cinema “with a twist” of the seventies had a special atmosphere of naivety, simplicity, ease in the development of events and the presentation itself, and women - natural attractiveness. Some like it, others don't. It's all individual. Also, if you are familiar with Rollin's work, you can entertain yourself with a silent game, constantly looking for familiar faces with surnames with whom he invariably collaborated, props from his other films scattered everywhere, or posters on the walls that seem to accidentally fall into the frame. A pseudonym is a pseudonym, but no one has canceled the advertising of his vampire films, jokingly speaking. This is no less amusing than the comical ending, which exacerbates the general absurdity of the entire production, because the villain begins to frankly resemble... the postman Pechkin! Please, not in appearance. Remember, he was mean because he didn't have a bicycle, but as soon as he got one, he immediately started to be nice? That's how she can easily and simply become kinder if she gets what she wants. Not a bicycle, of course, you understand.
The result is a film where, as is often the case, everything is so bad that in places it's even good. It's drawn out, clumsy, but sometimes amusing. Jean Rollin wasn't very good at making comedies, but he could entertain in other ways. For example, he once made Don't Mistake the Police for Fools, a 100% adventure comedy for the whole family about hapless gendarmes, featuring Michel Galabru, the master of the genre, in a small role. But there's not much to laugh about there, except for the name in the credits — Michel Gentil. Yes, yes, that very same prankster.
[/full-link]
[/full-link]
