And if someone promised you through a movie, a book – in general through a work of intellect – to reveal the secrets behind a still thorny subject like sex, would you listen and/or watch with blind faith?
With his 1972 film, with a very long title taken from a popular science book by American sexologist David Reuben, Woody Allen, not a novice director but still deeply embedded in his early period of “classic” comedy cinema, seems to want to play the role of a master in the sexual field, if one were to take the title at face value, but his intent is totally different and much more down-to-earth. He wants to entertain. Entertain in a healthy way, like a good apple, and intelligently, like the diligent child who is given the apple.
The work is divided into seven episodes drawn from as many chapters of the aforementioned book. It is an alternation of semi-serious sketches that rely on jokes that evoke laughter for their spontaneity and sometimes absurdity. Not only the words are tasked with making the audience laugh, but also the scenes, the actors' faces, especially that of Allen, who performs in four segments.
The subtopics of the macrosexual theme are: - aphrodisiacs; - sodomy; - orgasm; - transvestism; - sexual perversions; sex studies; - ejaculation. Before each scene appears a question on a black screen – which then becomes the title of the scene itself – to which Allen as director responds through a specific story. The film enjoys a certain stylistic uniformity, but contexts change, characters too, so that from a simple entertainment film, it turns into a historical-environmental journey. From the English medieval court of the first episode to Armenia (only mentioned) in the second, from the United States to Italy (third episode), Allen even goes as far as involving the inside of the male human body before, during, and after the sexual act in the brilliant closing.
Throughout the film’s duration, the director (and not exactly occasional performer) carries forward a sharp and in no way predictable social satire, just think of the parody of the quiz “What’s My Line?” (“What’s My Phrase?”) of the fifth segment, entitled “What are Sexual Perversions”, in which the program changes its name and becomes “What’s My Perversion?”. References to Jewish culture (to which the director is connected) couldn't be missed, appearing in the fifth episode with the insertion of the fetishist rabbi character. There are many exquisitely unhealthy traits that spice up the plot and hilarious are the roles played by Allen, especially that of the anxious spermatozoon, waiting to be expelled from the body after years of training, and who, frightened by the idea of “the dark outside”, at the last moment before the leap into the void, says “may God grant it goes well!”, a comedic invocation considering that the owner of the body, internally regulated by little men, is having an extramarital relationship with a woman invited to dinner.
“What you always wanted to know about sex …” in the director’s early filmography represents a high point, an exceptional example of intelligent and at the same time approachable comedy, which has a leg up on the past and the immediate future (such as “Sleeper” and “Love and Death”). A must-see if you are a fan of Allen, but also if you want to approach his immense filmography. Laughter is guaranteed.
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