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Rating:
There is the quintessential shot of all cinema: Varla's face in a concentration of triumph, in the apotheosis of an adrenalin-charged competitive instinct, set in the steering wheel of her black Porsche, shot from the pedals upwards.
But in the film, it's all an upside-down world of hyperboles, mystification, and reality. Our distorted aesthetics make us think that the use of black and white is an artistic stroke of genius by the director. However, the film was not shot in color because the other chromatophobe film was cheaper. Short on cash, Russ turns economic difficulties into a virtue and with a few bucks makes something that should wipe the floor with many directors who, with a covered rear, act like posers.
I am reminded of Jodorowsky who answered the question "who was the greatest director?" by saying that if he had had a budget of millions of dollars, he would be the greatest director of all, to hell with those flights of fancy of creativity of 'this bullshit'. But Russ Meyer, with a psychomagical act that passes from the fifth (dimension) upwards, with a few coins in his pocket, is the exception that "erects" him as one of the greatest directors ever.
Therefore, the starkness of the set and the scantiness of the crew (three, four people at most) reminds me of the adventures of Tarkovsky, a conjoined twin at the opposite poles of our abundant erotophile, who also shot with a small team and makeshift means. The saying "who does it alone does it for three" has never been more apt: few technicians, few actors, everything stripped to the bone, shooting in the desert and what you see is what you get.
The final result is incredible, there's no dead time, no filler, no empty passage, every shot is perfection with spikes where at moments the frame "disappears" into the manifested energetic density, into the frenzy of prana. Tura Satana eternalizes it all, she is the star performer beyond any judgment, beyond considerations, she charms everyone, even the cacti. The destructive force, finally with a nihilistic purity free from associations, unfolds mercilessly throughout the film, the flaying is assured.
The lesbian part of Varla's bisexuality trains clitorises that, stimulated to the extreme by endless licking as if tomorrow doesn't exist, evolve in volume from appearing as a tiny button to a pachinko ball, including the ferrous aftertaste reinforced by just-past menstruation.
Rosie's (Haij) subservience is total while the blonde Billie is not spared the ultimate reprimand for the bold independence she demonstrated. Varla wants it all! Insolently in the apotheosis of a delusion of omnipotence, she stalks, puppeteers, and ravishes whoever comes her way. She is a creature with a material possession that spills over into satanic hypnosis that infects everyone, it's her "character."
Expanded, therefore, is the film that suffices itself by building its morality. The dialogues, sharp as scalpels, uncover without filters the possessions and miseries of those present. Ultimately, absurdly, the only one with clear ideas is "the vegetable," Kirk's stupid brother, so acute that in an instant he drinks his brain inevitably seduced by the virago.
But the scepter of command is always in Varla's hands, who bends even that old trickster, the old man, but with the abuse of her omnipotence accelerates the boomerang of cause-and-effect and reaps what she sows. We're then left with the final "sentence" to remain with the survivors, good people of "good" sentiments...
Seen for the first time (with subtitles, luckily) on the big screen of the summer arena near the Olympic stadium in Rome in July 1992, it cut my yawns short since it was screened from 0:30 onwards. And then, shortly after, watched again (and videotaped) on Fuori Orario on RaiTre always at a late night, along with several other films of the "Bosomania." And then bought on DVD in that maddening edition with the lousy Italian dubbing and WITHOUT Italian subtitles in the original audio. And then proposed to a vast number of friends and acquaintances and seen at one of these friends' houses where it triggered mixed reactions, including a scream against Tura the actress, in the film's last scene, from a girl present who got quite heated in that whirlwind that the film creates.
In short, a film à Go-Go! (Dancer) where no road leads to Rome, and the overturned bathtub of that Porsche 356 serves us a nice cold shower, where our Latin lover securities end up seated on that crippled old man's wheelchair, where we "taste" the dark side of an Amazonian femininity in a karateka sauce that is not at all reassuring.
Insolent and obscene Russ Meyer puts our visual amateurism in line where he turns the gaze into tactile and revises the past and future with a chrome that reflects a robust maturity compared to the nursery school of so many of his autistic godchildren unmasked by this psychic drive-in of his, enjoyed more than ever in this work. I always have my picture in plain view of the frame of the three "girls" leaning against the Porsche at the gas station in the middle of the desert, looking at it makes me feel good, makes me feel "elsewhere".
The vertical vibration that goes to the rhythm of the narrator's voice at the beginning of the film "reassures" us immediately: "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to violence!", ergo therefore...
FASTER PUSSYCAT KILL... KILL!
Filmed in Glorious Black and Blue
SUPERWOMEN!
BELTED, BUCKLED and BOOTED!
Understood?
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