This movie could pretty well be described as the weakest, less inspired work of Bigas Luna in the last few years. All the freshness, irony, and visual appeal of "Jamon, Jamon" is missing, unfortunately replaced by a direction more focused on the "shock factor" than on creating a more solid structure.

As far a "values" go, the movie contains some disturbingly twisted messages that most people could find indeed offensive. I seriously doubt any victim could fall so deeply in love with her cruel torturer, as Bambola does. From that point on, the movie loses all credibility, and everything starts going downhill. Bigas Luna pretends to shock you with a display of disturbing imagery and disturbed characters, but in the process forgets how to make the movie consistent. A wasted opportunity.

Laughably melodramatic would-be erotica, a far cry even from the only other 2 Luna titles I've watched (which were themselves lower-tier efforts)! To begin with, Anita Ekberg (who appears briefly as the title character's larger-than-life drunken termagant mother, named Greta Gustafsson!) delivers a scenery-chewing performance; likewise, Jorge Perrugoria as the loutish egomaniac who drools over the girl all through the film is surely one of the most obnoxious characters I've ever had to suffer! While Italian sex symbol Valeria Marini tries, she's hampered by her babyish voice - not to mention the exaggerated moans during the love-making and the fact that the couple's relationship never convinces for a second (if it's supposed to evoke "l'amour fou", it's a pathetic attempt)! The subplot involving Marini's gay brother's desperation over unrequited love for an imprisoned stud (which is all magically settled by the end) is merely boring. Really, the only attention-grabbing element - apart from Marini herself, that is - is the score; the pet goats are cute, too. Actually, the version I watched may have been cut as the "Stracult" book mentions an unforgettable sex scene involving eels - but, here, this is over before it has even begun as we're rushed to its messy aftermath!!

Very bad, old fashioned film about sexual obsession, by every now and then very bad Spanish director Bigas Luna, and very badly acted by Cuban Jorge Perugorría as usual, who should take new voice lessons. It looks and feels like a movie from the 1970s with Teresa Ann Savoy, heavy breathing and a silly story line... but without the benefits of Miss Savoy and the passing of time. A couple of months before this I saw "The Mill on the Po", "Bitter Rice", and "Lure of the Sila", three 1949 Italian films that took place in the Po valley -also featured in Antonioni's "The Cry" (1957)-, old relics with heavy sexual tension and everybody with their clothes on, that Bigas Luna should have seen.