Review of Julia

Julia (II) (1999)
5/10
A waste and a gem
16 July 2006
This will be a weird review. The movie we are discussing is not too many words worth but the one that came in the same bundle with it certainly is. To begin with, Giulia is a missed opportunity; a waste of great possibilities. Besides, Anna Biella seem to have shot herself in the foot taking part in this mess since her acting credits didn't improve very much after that, and that is a real pity. She is gorgeous to look at and seem to be a very talented actress. In addition to that, she's a real trooper accepting to participate in this short. All that opened a world of possibilities for a minimally talented director to make a hell of an erotic movie. Not so. In this case the movie is not only bad, it's incompetent, and that's worse than bad. The camera work and the editing are so abysmal that it's distracting. The sound stops arbitrarily in the middle of the scenes and the camera turns away suddenly as if we were looking at the unedited dailies. Not that there is too much to follow of the non-existent plot but at least they could have shown us what happens. I am a fierce advocate of crossover experiments with mainstream movies showing explicit sex, but the minimum requirement for that is that the experiment wouldn't be an embarrassment for any porn producer, as is the case here. A true waste.

But the blow came later. Together with Giulia there was a short film called "Sono Come Tu Mi Vuoi". "I am like you want me". My main curiosity was for Giulia and I begun to see the next thing with some skeptic disinterest. Little I knew. My greatest surprise was the performer. After a few sentences, I kind of notice that we were here not only dealing with a professional actress but an awesome one. I started to try to explain myself what was going on. Was the director a genius capable to stage the scene and write the text so good that anyone would look good in it? Probably, and this woman wouldn't be able to play anything else other that what was specially tailored for her… Was she lip synced by a great professional actress that gave her the powerful tones with which she was carrying a 25 minutes monologue with all of us glued to the screen? Sure, that must be. I tried to imagine what her real voice was and what kind of performance she would give without all that help. But I couldn't stay too long in those digressions because the lady brought me back again and again with her magic erotic spell. Well, I was dead wrong. The lady's name is Fiorella Rubino and she's a stage actress that has made her way from Richard III to Otello and tried this erotic experiment at the beginning of her career.

There was some controversy around this film. The movie was produced by Tinto Brass, the famous Italian erotic director, and Ms. Rubino, who is pursuing a political career, has vehemently denied to have worked under his direction. She is correct. The movie was directed by Francesco Dominedò and Brass just produced it and said two words in it. It would have been disappointing if she had repudiated her work because it is an impeccable example of a theater improvisation exercise, something that Lee Strassberg would have been proud to see in any of his seminars but, fortunately, it is not the case. The short film is mentioned in the actress website as part of her impressive CV and she seem to be comfortable with it, like it should be.

I honestly don't know where you can find this gem but, please, look for it.
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