Very hip, cool 1969 Italian movie that exudes the interior fashion and art of the moment. Starring the equally hip and cool, Catherine Spaak and Jean Sorel, plus a debut appearance from Florinda Bolkan, this was always going to be watchable and being based on the writing of Alberto Moravia, even more so. On the surface all is sweet and light but gradually we realize that something darker is going on. Although some consider the eventful outcome cut and dried, I still feel there is ambiguity here, all is not what it seems. The two main stars are great together and if Sorel's continuous hand miming is less that effective, it does lend charm to his character. Spaak with remarkable lack of costume changing looks fantastic throughout and even holds up well when the astonishing Bolkan joins the party. Moments of darkness, then amidst the mid-day sun and more than a hint that the 60s hedonistic heyday may be coming to an end.
3 Reviews
Male impotence
BandSAboutMovies15 May 2022
Warning: Spoilers
A Rather Complicated Girl was directed by Damiano Damiani, the director who came to the U. S. to make the most Italian movie - sheer exploitation and a streak of pure meanness - ever made in America, Amityville II: The Possession.
Alberto (Jean Sorel) has heard two sapphic lovers speak on the telephone and his head is filled with fantasies. He decides that he has to meet one of them in person, so he tracks down Claudia (Catherine Spaak, The Cat o' Nine Tails) and they soon find themselves making love non-stop in between acting as fake talent scouts so they can get involved with the innocent Viola (Gabriella Boccardo, A Quiet Place In the Country) and discussing the strange relationship between Claudia and the woman on the other line, her stepmother Greta (Florinda Bolkan, always the finest actor in any giallo).
I love that this movie tests what a giallo is a year before Argento would send everyone down the animal-named and switchblade holding path. Alberto is a rich man without a care, even making fun of the wife (María Cuadra) of his dying brother, asking her when she'll find her next lover. As for Claudia, she already has one abusive and possessive boyfriend - Pietro (Gigi Proietti) - and the film goes near hyperbolic in showing she has no morals with an interlude where she tries to seduce a priest.
The two plays games with one another and if you've seen enough giallo, you understand that Alberto can't outthink Claudia or her mental games, especially when she shows him the gun in her purse and wonders if he'd do anything for her. Perhaps they've found an equal match in one another, for a time, as the idea that they could make love in a room where someone hung themselves excites them both, as if they are above human concerns.
Interestingly, the interviewing of the young girl and Alberto's constant questions about Claudia's life and relationships makes this a proto-Sex, Lies and Videotape, as when he's not probing mentally, he can't probe physically. What's the fun in being a rich and gorgeous playboy if you're impotent? Maybe he really does need that gun.
Alberto (Jean Sorel) has heard two sapphic lovers speak on the telephone and his head is filled with fantasies. He decides that he has to meet one of them in person, so he tracks down Claudia (Catherine Spaak, The Cat o' Nine Tails) and they soon find themselves making love non-stop in between acting as fake talent scouts so they can get involved with the innocent Viola (Gabriella Boccardo, A Quiet Place In the Country) and discussing the strange relationship between Claudia and the woman on the other line, her stepmother Greta (Florinda Bolkan, always the finest actor in any giallo).
I love that this movie tests what a giallo is a year before Argento would send everyone down the animal-named and switchblade holding path. Alberto is a rich man without a care, even making fun of the wife (María Cuadra) of his dying brother, asking her when she'll find her next lover. As for Claudia, she already has one abusive and possessive boyfriend - Pietro (Gigi Proietti) - and the film goes near hyperbolic in showing she has no morals with an interlude where she tries to seduce a priest.
The two plays games with one another and if you've seen enough giallo, you understand that Alberto can't outthink Claudia or her mental games, especially when she shows him the gun in her purse and wonders if he'd do anything for her. Perhaps they've found an equal match in one another, for a time, as the idea that they could make love in a room where someone hung themselves excites them both, as if they are above human concerns.
Interestingly, the interviewing of the young girl and Alberto's constant questions about Claudia's life and relationships makes this a proto-Sex, Lies and Videotape, as when he's not probing mentally, he can't probe physically. What's the fun in being a rich and gorgeous playboy if you're impotent? Maybe he really does need that gun.
Wonderful cast; but disappointing
lor_30 June 2011
Warning: Spoilers
Since it combines so many elements I love, I was primed to like A RATHER COMPLICATED GIRL. Alas, it's underwhelming.
I love all of Alberto Moravia's highly pessimistic writing, and Jean Sorel starred in my favorite all-time adaptation of Moravia: FROM A ROMAN BALCONY. But here we have Sorel with beard looking like Franco Nero and playing a rotter -not my cup of tea.
Heroine Catherine Spaak was practically #1 in Europe during this period (since forgotten alas), having made her obligatory Hollywood debut starring in HOTEL and her biggest hit THE LIBERTINE about to become one of the biggest imports on the U.S. circuit. But she too is disappointing, given a very unbecoming short wig to wear throughout, and cavorting in rather tiresome Swinging Sixties fashion.
Even director Damiano Damiani had an off day. He had made one of his central works DAY OF THE OWL, starring Nero, and was really getting his groove on. But the "grooviness" of COMPLICATED GIRL is instantly dated, a relic of the '60s.
Film's opening is certainly stylish -after we watch Sorel do some experimental wine making, he is on the phone imagining a bevy of beautiful topless women. This certainly gets the juices flowing, but unfortunately star Spaak teases the viewer for the rest of the film, leaving nudity to the extras.
She's introduced on a motorbike, the stereotypical '60s free spirit. With mod and pop art settings throughout, the film visually falls neatly into the category typified by Tinto Brass's DEADLY SWEET and Giuilio Questi's DEATH LAID AN EGG. But what happens here is not as far out.
Instead we watch Sorel and Spaak in a rather tedious romance, whose ups and downs are fairly predictable. Hedonism is the theme and a certain nastiness creeps in, as in Nero's constant Super 8mm shooting of pretty girls and his put-downs of a cute Ewa Aulin type who briefly catches his fancy.
Film belatedly picks up interest when Florinda Bolkan enters the scene, looking at her most beautiful. This was her screen debut and she steals all her scenes, exuding a sexual sophistication.
SPOILER ALERT: Plot takes an absurd twist when Sorel, evidently with a Nietschean streak in him, intentionally runs Bolkan over with his sports car, and later seems positively proud of his act when he gloats about it. He apparently has a dissociative personality, but I found these aspects of the film quite distasteful.
His comeuppance does not come by getting caught (it remains an unsolved case of hit & run), but rather getting beaten to a pulp by previously wimpy seeming Luigi Proietti who he mistreated ever so casually early in the film. Obviously Moravia and Damiani wanted to emphasize the irony of such cause & effect arcs in one life (karma?), but it left me just as cold as any of the more recent crappy Chaos Theory-driven narratives.
Technically this is a well-made production, with snazzy musical score by Fabio Fabor (a 1-shot, perhaps a pseudonym?) and lush lensing by the always reliable Roberto Gerardi. It just doesn't add up to much, a victim of that wonderful era of OVER-production, when stars like Sorel and Spaak were working non-stop, batting out five films a year, rain or shine.
I love all of Alberto Moravia's highly pessimistic writing, and Jean Sorel starred in my favorite all-time adaptation of Moravia: FROM A ROMAN BALCONY. But here we have Sorel with beard looking like Franco Nero and playing a rotter -not my cup of tea.
Heroine Catherine Spaak was practically #1 in Europe during this period (since forgotten alas), having made her obligatory Hollywood debut starring in HOTEL and her biggest hit THE LIBERTINE about to become one of the biggest imports on the U.S. circuit. But she too is disappointing, given a very unbecoming short wig to wear throughout, and cavorting in rather tiresome Swinging Sixties fashion.
Even director Damiano Damiani had an off day. He had made one of his central works DAY OF THE OWL, starring Nero, and was really getting his groove on. But the "grooviness" of COMPLICATED GIRL is instantly dated, a relic of the '60s.
Film's opening is certainly stylish -after we watch Sorel do some experimental wine making, he is on the phone imagining a bevy of beautiful topless women. This certainly gets the juices flowing, but unfortunately star Spaak teases the viewer for the rest of the film, leaving nudity to the extras.
She's introduced on a motorbike, the stereotypical '60s free spirit. With mod and pop art settings throughout, the film visually falls neatly into the category typified by Tinto Brass's DEADLY SWEET and Giuilio Questi's DEATH LAID AN EGG. But what happens here is not as far out.
Instead we watch Sorel and Spaak in a rather tedious romance, whose ups and downs are fairly predictable. Hedonism is the theme and a certain nastiness creeps in, as in Nero's constant Super 8mm shooting of pretty girls and his put-downs of a cute Ewa Aulin type who briefly catches his fancy.
Film belatedly picks up interest when Florinda Bolkan enters the scene, looking at her most beautiful. This was her screen debut and she steals all her scenes, exuding a sexual sophistication.
SPOILER ALERT: Plot takes an absurd twist when Sorel, evidently with a Nietschean streak in him, intentionally runs Bolkan over with his sports car, and later seems positively proud of his act when he gloats about it. He apparently has a dissociative personality, but I found these aspects of the film quite distasteful.
His comeuppance does not come by getting caught (it remains an unsolved case of hit & run), but rather getting beaten to a pulp by previously wimpy seeming Luigi Proietti who he mistreated ever so casually early in the film. Obviously Moravia and Damiani wanted to emphasize the irony of such cause & effect arcs in one life (karma?), but it left me just as cold as any of the more recent crappy Chaos Theory-driven narratives.
Technically this is a well-made production, with snazzy musical score by Fabio Fabor (a 1-shot, perhaps a pseudonym?) and lush lensing by the always reliable Roberto Gerardi. It just doesn't add up to much, a victim of that wonderful era of OVER-production, when stars like Sorel and Spaak were working non-stop, batting out five films a year, rain or shine.
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