Mimi (1979) User Reviews

Tragic Electra Complex

[claudio_carvalho · 7/10 · 15 May 2012]

The fifteen year-old Maria "Mimmina" Luiza (Lara Wendel) leaves the boarding school in Genève to stay in the Bechten Hotel nursing her father, the widower writer Guido (Franco Nero), who is paralyzed by rheumatism. Along the days, Guido recovers from his illness and Mimmina has a crush on him and tries to seduce her own father. When her roommate and best friend Therese (Dalila Di Lazzaro), who is eight years older than Mimmina, comes to the hotel to visit Mimmina, she has a love affair with Guido with tragic consequences.

"Un Dramma Borghese" is a theatrical film about incestuous relationship between daughter and father but never vulgar or cheap. Florestano Vancini directs the movie with sensitivity and the tragic Electra Complex has a natural conclusion. This film is only available on VHS in Brazil and has never been released on DVD or Blu-ray. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Mimi, Um Drama Borghese" ("Mimi, a Borguese Drama")

Released in North America on NTSC VHS videotape......No DVD Release....

[ntscfilms · 10/10 · 9 January 2009]

This film was released on NTSC VHS videotape in North America in 1980 with the title ...UN DRAMMA BORGHESE.....It had a small distribution in Quebec and the French speaking areas of Eastern Canada and the northeastern USA....There is no DVD version......It was released in Italian Language with French Subtitles.....It is no longer In Print and is rarely seen in French Canadian video stores.....the Ex-Rentals are generally poor quality and and the original tape has often been replaced.....Best to find one with decent picture quality ..........It was released with an French jacket with a drawing of a young girl in nightgown holding her foot......Directed by Florestano Vancini  and stars Lara Wendel, Franco Nero, Dalila Di Lazzaro ....the run time of the North American release is 1 Hour 37 minutes.....Also Known As .....Mimi........young Lara Wendel on holiday from a boarding school tries very hard to get attention from her father (Franco Nero)... who fortunately develops an interest in her school friend, beautiful Itallian actress Dalila Di Lazzaro......Guido (Franco Nero) is an international journalist with a difficult relationship with his daughter, Mimi (Lara Wendel). He hasn't seen her for several years and has just taken her away from boarding school......She is now or some reason is doing everything in her power to get him to have sex with her..........He goes crazy trying to avoid her advances....... Eventually, her school friend Therese (Dalila Di Lazzaro) comes to visit them, and Guido at last has an object for his passions.

"Italian incest" film that's pretty risqué, but really much more serious than sexy

[lazarillo · 3 March 2012]

A young girl (Lara Wendel)comes back from boarding school to care for her ill widower father (Franco Nero). He begins to recover and she begins to fall in love with him. She tries to seduce him. He resists. He meets an older woman (Dalila DiLazzaro). It all ends badly.

This another entry in the strange 70's Italian genre of "incestuous family" films. This particular film deals with potential father-daughter incest, a subject more taboo than the usually cousin-lovin' or niece-lust themes in most of these films, or even the teenage boy-young stepmother theme of Salvatore Samperi's "Malizia", the film that seemingly started this very odd genre. This is, however, a pretty well-made and tasteful film. Franco Nero always brings a lot of class to all the films he is in. Lara Wendel is an unusual actress in that she was fairly ordinary looking and actually about the same age at the time as most of the young characters she played (most of these kind of roles were played by twenty-year-old beauties like Ornella Muti or Nastassia Kinski). She was also an underrated actress, who began her career in a notorious film with Eva Ionesco, and ended it in a string of cheap Italian horror movies (the best of which is Argento's "Tenebrae"), but she is especially good in "Desideria", Samperi's "Ernesto" (where she plays male and female twins) and this. Dalila DiLazzaro is most famous for playing the female monster in "Flesh for Frankenstein" and a murdered hooker in the superb giallo "The Pyjama Girl Case". She too appeared in an Argento film, "Phenomenon" as the mistress of a Swiss boarding school.

There is one rather risqué, but not very graphic scene, where Wendel's character crawls in bed with her father and starts masturbating "in her sleep". But aside from some brief toplessness and some diaphanous nightgowns, this a less "sexy" role than "Desideria" or even some of her horror films (like the "Exorcist" rip-off "Ring of Darkness" where Wendel played a gratuitously naked version of Linda Blair). Nero and the gorgeous DiLazzaro meanwhile both keep their clothes on and don't even have an on-camera sex scene. Despite it's very risqué subject matter, this is a much more serious than sexy movie. Not the most believable film about father-daughter relationships perhaps, but not wholly unbelievable either, and it's certainly redeemed by some good acting from the three leads.

A teenage girl on holidays from a boarding school attempts seducing her dad...

[patate-2 · 7 July 1999]

20 years after seeing it still remember it. I wonder why. Well into the viewing, I remember being bored. Nice photo-direction, set, costumes, acting and script but what's the point? The poor dad almost fell into the trap for two hours.