By Adrian Smith
Valentina
(Isabelle De Funès) is a
marxist fashion photographer in Milan. She is intelligent, talented and sexy,
so it's no wonder that the leftist intellectuals all want to sleep with her. On
her way home from a totally swinging party, the kind where alcohol and topless
chicks are readily available, Valentina is almost run down by a car. Whilst sitting
dazed at the side of the road, the driver emerges to check if she is okay. This
is none other than the bizarrely-named Baba Yaga (former Hollywood sex symbol
Carroll Baker). She tells Valentina that fate has brought them together. Baba
Yaga gives her a lift home and explains that they will become firm friends. To
ensure this she steals a clip from the top of one of Valentina's stockings and
touches it to her lips suggestively. Baba Yaga is a witch, and clearly has
sapphic feelings towards her. Valentina, who as far as we know is not a
lesbian, does not seem to mind this unwarranted attention. Later that night she
dreams about stripping naked in front of Nazi guards. When she visits Baba
Yaga's house, Valentina gets horny and touches herself in the spare room. Is
she already under the lesbian witch's spell?
Baba
Yaga owns an unnervingly realistic doll which is dressed as some sort of
bondage queen. Valentina accepts this doll as a gift, with murderous
consequences. Luckily Valentina has a boyfriend (played by genre favourite
George Eastman, star of the notorious Anthropophagus, 1981). He may not
believe that Baba Yaga really is a witch, but he's so desperate to get
Valentina in the sack that he'll go along with it.
This
is a very weird movie. Everything described here occurs quite early in the
film, and it makes less and less sense as it goes on. Based on the black and
white Italian erotic fumetti (comics) of Guido Crepax, this Italian/ French
co-production is a mixture of pop art, eroticism, dazzling colour,
psycho-analysis, dreams and the supernatural. Other fumetti had been
successfully adapted into movies previous to this one, including Danger:
Diabolik and Barbarella, (both 1968), but in Baba Yaga
director Corrada Farina specifically tries to mimic the comic style, using
panels and black and white still photography to replicate Crepax's stark line
drawings. It is very effective and adds to the “arthouse meets Eurotrash†feel
of the movie. This is certainly no Danger: Diabolik though. The pace is
slow and ponderous to the point of irritation at times, but you soon forgive
it. Valentina likes to do semi-naked photo shoots in her flat, which she
somehow hopes will influence the forthcoming left-wing revolution. She also
discovers that her unsettling bondage doll comes to life, in the shapely,
almost naked form of Ely Galleani, who was an Italian actress and Playboy
centrefold. Galleani has no dialogue in this movie but leaves a lasting
impression, particularly when wielding a whip in a lesbian S & M torture
dungeon.
Carroll
Baker was an unusual choice for the movie, and in his interview on the blu ray
Farina explains that she was a last minute replacement for his original Baba
Yaga, the British actress Anne Heywood. Three days before shooting was to begin
Heywood left to star in the Rod Taylor adventure film Trader Horn
(1973), a move which lead to her being sued by the studio. Baker was in Italy
working on the giallo thriller The Flower With Petals of Steel (1973),
and had a name which would look good on the posters. Farina was disappointed
that she had a face “like she had been raised on a farm on a diet of popcorn,â€
rather than the pinched, angular face of Baba Yaga in Crepax's drawings.
Carroll was willing to do the film, and with such a tight schedule he was left
with no other choice. In the end Farina was very pleased with her performance.
Legendarily she appeared completely naked (a moment that was cut by censors and
is missing from the restored print on this Blu-ray, but is available in the
extras). This was a bold move for a mainstream Hollywood actress in 1973 and
Farina insists that it was not in the script but was all her own idea.
Incidentally the only other moment of full frontal nudity was courtesy of Isabelle De Funès, a scene that
was also cut by the censors but is also available in the extra scenes here.
In
some ways Baba Yaga feels like Quentin Tarantino has had a pass at the
script. Early in the film various characters discuss the problems of getting
political messages into movies, and Valentina remarks that influential French
director Jean Luc Godard's last good film was Pierrot le Fou (1965). Another
character is an underground comic book artist, and is often talking about the
art form and his concerns about becoming commercially successful. Baba Yaga
is almost post-modern before the term was invented.
If
your main experience of Italian 1970s movies is the “gialloâ€, you will enjoy
most of what this film has to offer. It does have longueurs, some of which can
lead you to look impatiently at your watch, wondering when anything is going to
happen again. Stick with it and Baba Yaga is a rewarding viewing
experience. The far out and groovy soundtrack is supplied by composer Piero
Umilani, who is perhaps best known for creating 'Mah Na Mah Na', the song
covered by The Muppets! There is no original soundtrack of Baba Yaga
available, but the attention-grabbing theme song is available on his 1971
lounge album 'To-Day's Sound'.
This
Blu-ray from Blue Underground features the same extras as their DVD release
from 2003. The print, howeve,r is a massive improvement from the earlier
release. The most interesting bonus feature is the in-depth interview with the
director, where he discusses the problems he had with the producers, who made
changes in the edit against his wishes. It is also worth sitting through the
deleted scenes, if only to catch a glimpse of Carroll Baker as you have never
seen her before. There is also a short documentary in Italian about the artist
Guido Crepax. Sadly many of his graphic novels have not yet been translated
into English, but after watching this film you will want to try and track them
all down.
Click here to order from Amazon