Embrujada (1969)

... aka: Bewitched

Directed by:

Armando Bo

Voluptuous Latin American bombshell Isabel Sarli, who started out as a model and beauty queen (she was Miss Argentina in 1955 and a Miss Universe semi-finalist later the same year) headlines this little exploitation romp from Argentina. A vision of heaving bosom, soft tummy, wide hips, piled-high black hair and thick fake eyelashes, it's easy to see why she became an in-demand sex film star in South America and also acquired a healthy fan following elsewhere. Sarli was discovered by director Bo in 1956 and immediately cast in a starring role in his Thunder in the Grass (1957), where she instantly made a name for herself by becoming the first actress in Argentine film history to appear fully nude on film. The notoriety of her nude swimming scene was such that it turned the otherwise unexceptional drama into a record-setting box office smash in much of South America. Many other controversial and then-critically-panned sexploitation films featuring ample nudity from the star would follow, with the duo perhaps hitting their peak in 1968 with Fuego, which was so racy it became the first film to be banned in its home country.

Many of Sarli's films were also popular in North America and throughout Europe and she reputedly turned down offers to work with major studios just to keep making these low-budget sex flicks with Bo, whom she was romantically involved with for decades. The duo kept on going until his death in 1981, with Sarli (then in her early 50s) deciding to throw in the towel at the same time. Before passing away in 2019 at the age of 89, she was at least able to see the cultural impact of her films and was even awarded the title of "Ambassador of Popular Culture" by Argentinian president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in 2012.

Unhappy trophy wife Ansise (Sarli), who'd been plucked from her Guarani Indian tribe and "cultured" years earlier, is desperate to have a child. And not just any kind of child will suffice. For some reason that's never explained (Nazi fetish?) she's fixated on having one with blonde hair and blue eyes. That proves an impossible task as she's married to wealthy, much-older lumberyard owner Leandro (Daniel de Alvarado) who may shower her with money, attention and gifts but hasn't yet been able to shower her with a pregnancy. Consults with an old psychic woman and a doctor both confirm her suspicions that it's likely her husband who's infertile (or, "useless" as they deem him), not her. The problem is then compounded when pressure put on the old chap to perform makes him unable to get an erection.

Leandro starts taking his frustrations out on his work crew and has his whip-wielding right hand thug Peralta (Miguel A. Olmos) tie up and lash an under-performer. This kind of brutality only further alienates Ansise, who starts to actively despise ("You are the scum of civilization!") her husband. For revenge, she runs off to a whorehouse and is hired by the madam after agreeing to service thirty to forty men a day during her 8 hour shifts. She doesn't even ask to get paid. She merely wants somebody - anybody - to knock her up. But Leandro gets wind about what she's doing and goes to retrieve her before she can even finish with her very first client. She's brought back home and becomes even wilder.

Leandro hires a young blonde man named Juan (Victor Bo, the director's real-life son) and, almost immediately, he and Ansise are hooking up, taking nude swims together under a waterfall and plotting to run away together. Ansise begins flaunting her infidelities in her husband's face to the point where he attempts to strangle her. After another of Ansise's patented nude swims, she lies down in a field and has visions of Indian rituals as lightning flashes. A horned, clawed, hairy demon then crawls on top of her and rapes her before disappearing. Or does it? Seeing how Ansise was already starting to lose her mind over the whole baby thing, we're not quite sure. Either way, local legend has it that a demon called Pombero is known to lurk in the area...

Ansise is haunted by visions of the demon, accompanied by psychedelic color flashes and a whistling sound as it proceeds to grope her, terrorize her and (seemingly) possess her body. Desperation finally leads her to the backwoods shack of dirty hermit Jacinto (C. Adolpho Chadler). She pleads for him to impregnate her but the demon chops him with a machete before he can. More murders follow. We're also provided with an explanation for why Leandro can't get it up for his sexy young wife. It ends up having nothing to do with his age and everything to do with him screwing his male assistant (!) instead... but only if he wears lipstick and sprays himself with women's perfume (?!?) beforehand.

As a movie movie, this is cheap, not very well made or shot and has some truly bizarre and off-putting editing choices, with lots of quick cuts and flashes of reused footage we've either already seen or are about to see along with grainy, sepia tinted archive footage from the director's earlier film India (1959) wedged in from time to time. As a horror movie, it has a few fun schlocky moments but it's never very exciting nor very interesting plot-wise. And if you're a feminist you might want to steer clear unless you're looking to laugh at a depiction of a woman with no discernible personality or driving force in her life outside of becoming a brood mare who'll screw any man in sight.

However, as a showcase for the female star's figure this is a resounding success. She has near-nonstop topless scenes, a full frontal nude scene, a few minor sex scenes (one featuring the director in an uncredited cameo as a brothel client) and, during those few times when she isn't naked, is showing maximum cleavage in short dresses or walking around in see-through nightgowns. If you're a fan of large breasted, curvy women, what Sarli brings to the table will certainly bewitch you even if the rest of the film doesn't.

To my knowledge, this Argentinian / Brazilian co-production has never been officially released to home video in any country. The only current outlets who carry it are bootleggers offering a video-sourced print on DVD-R, which comes with English subs and a fucked-up aspect ratio. While most film resources agree that this was made in 1969, they don't always agree on the release year. I've seen some go with 1969 and others claim it didn't make it to theaters until 1976.

★★

Apartment Zero (1988)

... aka: Apartment 0

Directed by:
Martin Donovan

Adrian LeDuc (Colin Firth), who's been raised between the UK and Argentina since he was a child, runs the revival-house theatre Cine York in Buenos Aires, which specializes in classic and art house films. His offbeat, eclectic choices haven't exactly been packing the house, just as his offbeat, eclectic personality hasn't won him over any friends, let alone any romantic relationships. Adrian absolutely lives for the cinema. It's his entire life; his obsession. Instead of framed photos of close friends and family members, his flat is decorated with portraits of classic movie stars because they are the people he feels kinship with. The cinema has been his escape from the world; a place to hide and a distraction from the things he deeply dislikes about himself and his life. A loner who finds it nearly impossible to connect with other people, Adrian has instead opted to shrug off the company of others; confiding all to his mentally-ill, institutionalized mother because she's not in the right mind to question or condemn. He even goes so far as to pretend he doesn't know Spanish just so he can avoid casual conversations. As for the neighbors in the apartment house where he lives, they might as well forget it. Adrian doesn't want to get to know them. He doesn't want to let them into his life, and figures a simple hello or goodbye in passing is more than sufficient. Needless to say, his standoffish nature has him branded a rude and unpleasant man to everyone around him.

But the deeply lonely and repressed Adrian is ready for a change. With his mother's health quickly spiraling down, Adrian yearns for a friend and a companion. He puts an ad in the paper for a roommate to share his flat and immediately gets numerous responses. Most of the people who show up don't seem like they'd be a good mesh, but that all changes when the handsome Jack Carney (Hart Bochner) appears at his doorstep. All it takes is for him to stand next to a picture of James Dean to have Adrian sold. He's found his movie star; your prototype mysterious bad boy who can afford to dress simply (t-shirts, jeans and a leather jacket) because he knows he wields all the power he needs in his winning smile. Jack claims to work for a local computer company, but Adrian is so instantly smitten that he unwisely doesn't ask too many questions. At least at first. He's much too busy trying to live out a married couple scenario with his new boarder; offering to do Jack's laundry and cooking him breakfast every morning before work. All that's really missing is a kiss before heading out the door.

Jack turns out to be a master manipulator. He's a good listener, his magnetic stare is almost hypnotic and he possesses such a dark charm and intense, effortless sexual prowess, that he's able to seduce both men and women alike, regardless of their sexual preference. People feel at ease with him; like they can open up to him and share their deepest, darkest secrets without fear of judgment. For strictly selfish reasons, Adrian demands he not associate with any of the denizens in their apartment building, but Jack does anyway. It takes him no time at all to wrap every single person he comes into contact with around his finger; something Adrian's been unable to do all the years he's lived there. And not coincidentally, there also happens to be a serial killer running amok in the city.

Apartment Zero is an intelligent psycho-drama very much in tune with films like Polanski's Repulsion (1965) and The Tenant (1976), with its apartment setting and psychological components, as well as Bergman's Persona (1966); with its vastly differing personas feeding off each other and ultimately beginning to blur together. Donovan and co-writer David Koepp intentionally establish a reference point here in Richard Fleischer's classic Compulsion (1959), which was based on the famous 1924 Leopold-Loeb murder case. Leopold and Loeb were two wealthy young men (and lovers) who killed someone just because they could, hid the body in a trunk and then invited various guests over to their apartment where the trunk was kept in plain sight; as a way to enhance the thrill of getting away with the murder. At one point in Apartment Zero, Adrian and Jack actually attend a screening of Compulsion, and a corpse hidden inside a trunk eventually makes its way into the film. The Leopold-Loeb case had also been the basis for Hitchcock's experimental film Rope (1949), as well as the later Swoon (1992). While both Rope and Compulsion could only hint at the more intimate relationship between the killers, Swoon delved directly into the relationship. Apartment Zero sits somewhere on the fence. The gay content is obviously here, but done with subtlety and restraint. Firth's character is so deeply repressed that he's unable to act on his desires, even with his more-than-likely willing object of affection right at his disposal.

The interplay between Adrian and Jack is brilliantly handled and really what makes this movie. These men; sexually-repressed, antisocial, awkward and stuffily mannered Adrian, and sexually adventurous, outgoing, charming and spontaneous Jack,  couldn't be any more opposite, but in some strange way they actually complement one another. Jack tells Adrian at one point that they gel because they're both "special" and misunderstood; the ways in which they're special is a moot point. It's certainly no coincidence that The Odd Couple is mentioned; Adrian and Jack are an odd couple; albeit a rather disturbed one. The various denizens of the apartment building add additional flavor to the film. 

Dora Bryan and Liz Smith plays a pair of eccentric, talkative old spinsters (Brit expatriates themselves) who are more than happy to welcome Jack's company, Fabrizio Bentivoglio is a macho guy who feels enough at ease to confess a sexual secret from his past to the new tenant, James Telfer is a mistreated transvestite and Mirella D'Angelo (from Argento's TENEBRAE) is a lonely, neglected women in a tumultuous relationship.

★★★1/2