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Rating: It may seem incredible, but in the field of cinema, it can happen that, besides making a film, someone might commit a film. At least, when rewatching certain films after a long time, one remains puzzled for many reasons related to outdated concepts regarding what was pop and daring at a specific historical moment. And there also arises the suspicion that the film being discussed was already an authentic "ciofeca" (slang term for a work of at least dubious quality) back then.
Take for example "Candy" and her crazy world released in 1968 but arrived in Italy in February 1970 (who knows, perhaps our censorship considered it too daring...). In a phase like that of great changes in mentality and customs, a film so bizarre and lopsided could have been another proposal targeted at the innovative tastes of the restless young masses. The subject was even inspired by the famous pamphlet "Candide" by the Enlightenment thinker Voltaire and transported to modern times, with a young protagonist named Candy (played by Ewa Aulin). She is a student who, during boring university lectures, drifts into her dream world. And on an oneiric level, the girl imagines herself involved in absurd encounters with more or less bizarre men, who, as soon as they approach her, do everything possible to vent their libidinous urges. This causes her astonishment concerning certain misadventures involving her. But the dream phase inevitably ends, and Candy will always find herself back in a university classroom, attending the usual lectures.
The film can just be dismissed as a harmless divertissement for both the director (Christian Marquand) and all the actors involved, who are of great caliber like Marlon Brando, Richard Burton, James Coburn, Walter Matthau, even Ringo Starr (just to name a few). On the other hand, however, the fact that the plot revolved around a cute blonde girl was already in line with the established stereotype from the 50s of the (blonde) girl of sin. From Marilyn Monroe to Brigitte Bardot, the script of the young attractive girl who visibly excited the surrounding men was followed. And Ewa Aulin did not constitute, in that sense, a great novelty.
Perhaps, by the standards of so-called decency of that era, the film could have been considered daring (all those men around Candy who only want to get her...). But it was just one of the many films circulating that revolved around the theme of the liberalization of customs and sex. Seeing it now "Candy" is more allusive than explicit, at most mischievous, with this Ewa Aulin so seemingly unaware of how the world works (maybe her parents never mentioned sex education?). Almost a film for everyone, if one considers what can be found today on the web.
It is, anyway, a film that has aged poorly, confusingly edited by a somewhat sloppy director, to the point that the viewer gets a little lost following Candy's adventures and doesn't always manage to grasp the thread of the plot. If anything is to be saved, it's the part where Marlon Brando holds the scene as an Indian fakir guru. His interpretation of a typical character in vogue at the time is spot on, namely a man so devoted to spiritual transcendence yet not disdainful of the material pleasures of sex and food. A very classy cameo, sure, but not enough to salvage the fortunes of a muddled film destined for the scrapheap of history.
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