This is a film by Jess Franco, notorious/prolific/dangerous director who made in excess of 200 films between 1962 and 2013 (even he lost count). Being a fan of his work is an endlessly rewarding experience. Just when you think you are beginning to get a handle on his styles and proclivities, he will reset the default switch.
Such is the case with 'Sinfonia Erotica'. Beginning with the music - many good things have been said about his incidental musical scores, often the finely crafted work of Daniel White, Bruno Nicolai or Franco himself. Here, Franco is credited alongside Franz Liszt, and it is fair to say this film contains a fusion of wistful electronica and Liszt's background classical sweeps. Whereas music in Franco films is often gloriously inappropriate, here, the score is simply *not quite fitting* for the scenes. This gives the action a fractured, drifting quality, an elegance complimented by Franco's idiosyncratic directorial flourishes.
Lina Romay, who I have always thought of as an excellent, enthusiastic actress, gives possibly her most persuasive performance here. As Martine de Bressac, she is a fragile, damaged figure a million miles away from her ferociously exotic turns in various other roles for her partner/director. She is billed as Candice Coster, and as is often the way, wears a variety of blond wigs pertinent to that stage name. She is abused and humiliated here by her aristocratic family, and laughed at by rescued house-guest Nun Norma, played by Susan Hemingway. There is also a flamboyant gay couple, which I mention because they and their occasional sex scenes are such a rarity for Franco - I think in his fifty years of films, this is the only male homosexual relationship I can think of.
For all this, it is Franco's directorship that is the main feature here. The locations, which are stunning and propel the visuals far ahead of 'Sinfonia Erotica's' typically low budget, are featured to their fullest by the meandering cinematography, obsession with the views outside the window, drifting in and out of focus (no frantic zooms to speak of though) and sparkling use of lighting; the sound design is often given to echo effects and disorientating distortion, all of which makes this a truly (and terrifically) dreamy trip of a film.
Such is the case with 'Sinfonia Erotica'. Beginning with the music - many good things have been said about his incidental musical scores, often the finely crafted work of Daniel White, Bruno Nicolai or Franco himself. Here, Franco is credited alongside Franz Liszt, and it is fair to say this film contains a fusion of wistful electronica and Liszt's background classical sweeps. Whereas music in Franco films is often gloriously inappropriate, here, the score is simply *not quite fitting* for the scenes. This gives the action a fractured, drifting quality, an elegance complimented by Franco's idiosyncratic directorial flourishes.
Lina Romay, who I have always thought of as an excellent, enthusiastic actress, gives possibly her most persuasive performance here. As Martine de Bressac, she is a fragile, damaged figure a million miles away from her ferociously exotic turns in various other roles for her partner/director. She is billed as Candice Coster, and as is often the way, wears a variety of blond wigs pertinent to that stage name. She is abused and humiliated here by her aristocratic family, and laughed at by rescued house-guest Nun Norma, played by Susan Hemingway. There is also a flamboyant gay couple, which I mention because they and their occasional sex scenes are such a rarity for Franco - I think in his fifty years of films, this is the only male homosexual relationship I can think of.
For all this, it is Franco's directorship that is the main feature here. The locations, which are stunning and propel the visuals far ahead of 'Sinfonia Erotica's' typically low budget, are featured to their fullest by the meandering cinematography, obsession with the views outside the window, drifting in and out of focus (no frantic zooms to speak of though) and sparkling use of lighting; the sound design is often given to echo effects and disorientating distortion, all of which makes this a truly (and terrifically) dreamy trip of a film.