This was a film I had been keen to see for a while, having read some interesting articles and reviews about it. It is now available on DVD, if you know where to look, in an Italian-audio only version.
There is a genuine sense of things seeming beyond the characters' control in Scandalo - the conflict of WW2 coming closer to the French town where the film is set, the now-chilly relationship between Lisa Gastoni's Eliane and her husband and ultimately, the charged emotional and sexual bondage that she finds herself embroiled in with Franco Nero's Armand, several moments of genuine and heated sensuality finally culminating in the shocking denouement involving Eliane's daughter.
Gastoni is impressively tight-laced, then emotionally wild. Nero is darkly seductive, then chillingly shameless - a further example of his talent, and willingness to play morally ambiguous roles to the hilt.
Scandalo's intent is beyond the realms of erotica, into psychological drama. Definitely not a film for the faint-of-heart, or easily offended.
There is a genuine sense of things seeming beyond the characters' control in Scandalo - the conflict of WW2 coming closer to the French town where the film is set, the now-chilly relationship between Lisa Gastoni's Eliane and her husband and ultimately, the charged emotional and sexual bondage that she finds herself embroiled in with Franco Nero's Armand, several moments of genuine and heated sensuality finally culminating in the shocking denouement involving Eliane's daughter.
Gastoni is impressively tight-laced, then emotionally wild. Nero is darkly seductive, then chillingly shameless - a further example of his talent, and willingness to play morally ambiguous roles to the hilt.
Scandalo's intent is beyond the realms of erotica, into psychological drama. Definitely not a film for the faint-of-heart, or easily offended.