Oh, damn all those pretentious artistic Italian film projects of twenty-five years ago! They possess a certain freedom of dialogue which was altogether lacking in American film then and still is undeniably lacking in even the best-written States projects. Here is a very interesting little film from female director Lina Wertmueller...a film of clashing passions, yes, but also a very beautiful film with an ironic foothold on its material on one end and a dervishly melancholic view on the other.
Simply put, this film is about the hunger developed between two Italians of differing social castes. One is a bearded Communist with a serenly blue pair of eyes (Giancarlo Giannini), and the other is a spoiled, slender blonde made rich through methods of capitalism (Mariangelo Melato). Of course at first they can't stand each other, but as time goes by, the Communist lies hold of the woman (both figuratively and physically) and practically forces himself upon her.
The film reminded me of Jonathan Demme's equally overlooked "Something Wild" in the two vastly different tones of its sections which seamlessly fit together at the end. The first half of the movie portrays life aboard a yacht as the capitalist woman and her husband sun bathe on deck while those who prescribe to socialist practices do the manual labor underneath. This part of the film is as bright and witty as any I've seen, not lacking the slightest inhibition at using such words as "proletariat" and commenting on the various evils of capitalism that would scare off many an American producer when faced with a similar project.
However the dynamics of the story are soon set in place, as man and woman are placed out at sea, amidst the sparkling incandescence of the water as captured by Giulio Battiferri, Guiseppe Fornari and Stefano Ricciotte's gorgeous cinematography. Eventually they find themselves on a deserted island, where the man turns the woman's capitalism against her by making her wash his underpants for food. Later the man pushes the woman past her economic facade into a primal state of sexual ecstasy interspersed with the man's vicious slappings equating himself as the "master" over the woman. Such a film leads to its inevitable conclusion, and one finds oneself exhausted at the allegorical nature of the situation.
Although I don't look at "Swept Away" with any sort of agreement on its sympathetic view of the Communist proletariat, I find its symbolic interpretations fascinating. Indeed the movie gives capitalism the slinky, seductive form of Woman, and equates the marketplace as whorishness of the worst kind. On the other hand, the film portrays Communism as some sort of untamed beast irresistable in its muscular masculinity. As the film ends one is reminded that two different perspectives can hardly live together, but at one time they were able to coexist. Of course those sympathetic to the Communist cause have less to worry about now then they did in 1975 when "Swept Away" was released, but nevertheless it remains a mesmerizing find essaying the ideals of such a state of mind.
