The Tyrant's Heart

Miklos Jancsó is perhaps the most well-known hungarian director outside of Hungary. "A Zsarnok Szive..." is the second and last collaboration between the director and the very beautiful but underused English actress Teresa Ann Savoy (whose most "famous" role was that of Drusilla in the controversial "Caligula").

In their first collaboration, Savoy was wasted in the role of a depraved hermaphrodite in the bizarre "Vizi Private, Pubbliche Virtú" (1975).

In this second collaboration, also co-wrote by Giovanna Gagliardo, Teresa plays a queen in a medieval court, who spends most of her little screen time in a kind of trance. Fans of the actress, like me, will be disappointed to find that, despite appearing first on the cast credits, she hasn't much screen time. So sad because her beauty is incomparable. Why she never was properly used in a movie? Were film producers blind?

The plot of the film seems to be confusing, especially because I watched it in hungarian, with French subtitles. Hungarian, I don't understand anything, and French, I understand very little.

Anyway, the film is extremely boring and repetitive. Ninetto Davoli is very irritating and none of the main actors has charisma. And I really can't understand why Teresa is the first name if she had only a cameo!