One of the things I enjoy about watching flicks from another era is the opportunity to put myself in the mindset of the, in this case, 1969 audience. I recently watched Camille 2000 directed by Radley Metzger. Going in, I was expecting to watch (my idea of) “vintage” porn. I was pleasantly surprised by this NC-17 Romantic Drama set in Rome.
Quick side note: Did you know that there’s one specific sex act that will bump a movie up from R rated to NC-17? It’s cunilingus! Yep, a woman receiving oral pleasure (that expression always makes me giggle) is what tips the scale. Patriarchy much?
Here I want to add a CW for some of the behavior of the men in this flick. Prep yourself, as a 1969 moviegoer, for consent violations in the form of what they consider to be playful flirting. Holy shit, the way they were picking up, at times literally, on women was troublesome. I’ll add another CW for language they used in the flick. I won’t repeat it here, but I let out an audible “WTF” when Marguerite called her designer a specific homosexual slur. I just wasn’t ready for that and I began to worry if I’d like the flick. I began looking deeper than dialogue and fell all the way in to their efforts of “modern” furniture that appeared to live on the line between fashion forward and ridiculous. I fell in to the funky soundtrack that was surprisingly uncheesy. Like, there was brown chicken, but no brown cow to the music. (*sing it with me* Brown chicken brown cow!) I loved the fashion and set design, although I’ll admit that I hated the poor little rich brats characters. It wasn’t a perfect movie.
The director chose some interesting perspectives for the sex scenes. They were the good kind of interesting, not the chin scratching kind of interesting. My absolute favorite shot in the whole flick was what I’ll call the cunilingus flower scene. You’ll know it when you see it. By the time I reached that point in the flick, I’d learned how the sex scenes evolved from the characters making eyes to undressing to their orgasms. But, I also learned what was considered risque or what was considered “blue” to the audiences of 1969. I say that to encourage you to watch this flick with a clean slate. Don’t go in expecting to see the details we see in 2019 scenes when the focus is fucking. Instead, go in for the love story and allow your heart and body to be turned on as the tension unfolds. I’d definitely watch this again.
Love and gratitude to @PinkLabelTV