Bambola

Once upon a time there was a blonde bombshell from Malmo who took the world and Hollywood by storm. All roads lead to Rome. She ended up there, and Fellini wrote her into film history where she still is. A few decades have past. But when a food-loving director like Bigas Lunas calls, Anita Ekberg steps into the breach and chews lamb chops with a ferocity that is a joy to behold. She plays Greta, the mother of Bambola (the doll) who is Biga Lunas' well-filled virginal dream Barbie, personified by Italy's latest busty beauty Valeria Marini. Catalan Lunas has by now a well-known film universe comprised of food and sex. The Po delta, where the film is made, is Cesare Zavattini's and Michelangelo Antonioni's cinematographic clime. A fascinating landscape which Lunas laces with enormous mortadella sausages and slippery eels. It is not difficult to understand why Bigas Lunas loves Italy: the food, the women and the men. All served as a suitably spicy dish. Valeria is surrounded by four men: the outrageously fat Ugo, ''the world's most beautiful man'' Bettimoi, gaol-bird and sadist Furio as well as Bambola's homosexual brother Flavio (a bleached Stefano Dionisi, who we saw in the role of castrato Farinelli). The goat Lili rules everything! Valeria Marini has become a serial in Italy. Last summer, the newspapers amused themselves by revealing her full-figure, and discussing which of her assets were real. Anitona, as Fellini called Miss Ekberg, in her natural finery was still just that bit better in her day. La Ekberg's contribution here is minimal. Bigas Lunas kills her in the beginning and lets Bambola's mum disappear under a gravestone bearing the inscription Greta Gustavsson. This film ought really to have been called ''Last Tango in Comacchio''. With sexuality in abundance and a large eel having as important a role as the butter which Maria Schneider and Marlon Brando used in the Bertolucci classic. It is unnecessary to point out that Bambola has caused a scandal. It is still easy to do in a bourgeois Italy that seems strangely unaffected by a media culture which has already seen and shown everything. PE L

Medverkande
Valeria Marini, Stefano Dionisi, Anita Ekberg: Producent
Marco Poccioni, Marco Valsania, Juan Alexander, Yves Marmion, Daniel Toscan du Plantier: Manus
Cesare Frugoni & Bigas Luna: Foto
Fabio Conversi: Musik
Lucio Dalla: Talat språk
Italian