Search - Passion on DVD

Buyer beware

Mark Kittell | Seattle, WA United States | 04/29/2009

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Ever heard the old saying don't judge a book by its cover? Well, for this title, it's don't judge this DVD by its cover. The cover photo is not from this movie, but is a publicity still from the film Malizia. I bought this DVD because I'm a fan of Laura Antonelli, and there are so few DVDs out there with her in it. However, you'd have to be a Antonelli fanatic to watch, let alone buy, this bizarre film, whose plot I won't describe because, quite frankly, I didn't quite figure out what it was. Antonelli also kept her clothes on the entire movie, so be forewarned if you were thinking the movie had at least puerile interest."

Not so passionate, but well worth seeing.

Doctor LongGhost | 05/09/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"As a previous reviewer pointed out, the cover photo is NOT from the film itself. Also, the little plot summary on the back of the box relates only tangentially to this very bizarre and disturbing film. The print looks like it was ported over directly from not one VHS tape, but several VHS tapes, none of which were in very good shape to begin with. The presentation is full frame, which slices off probably 30% of the picture. You'll actually see two-character scenes where both characters are cut off, leaving you with only the scenic background on your screen. Oh, and Laura Antonelli DOES keep her clothes on throughout. All that being said, the film is well worth seeing, though it shares more with Polanski's Repulsion than it does with the kind of erotic thriller the cover and the new title seem to promise. The film title is not Passion, but actually Simona, the character Antonelli plays. While I'm still fairly unclear as to what this movie is really about, I will say that it seems to be a mash-up of two films, one of which featuring Simona as the main character and the other emphasizing a fairly bizarre giallo plotline. If you crossed Tinto Brass's Monella with Mario Bava's Lisa and the Devil, you might get something like this. This is a very strange film, which had me thinking of Jess Franco's Venus in Furs more than a few times, and if it weren't for the extremely poor presentation, I'd give it five stars. It should be noted that Donald Cammell, who co-directed Performance with Nicholas Roeg was hired to prepare an English language version of this for the states, a project that never came to fruition, so that should give you an impression how strange this is. This is the first Mya Communications film I've purchased, and I hope that other offerings from their catalog are in slightly better shape. Mya is basically a rebirth of the old No Shame label, a company that really went the extra mile in term of great quality transfers and attention to detail. As Mya releases more films in the coming months, we'll see whether they're up to the old No Shame standards."

Substandard Effort

M. Zimmer | Madison, WI USA | 08/25/2009

(1 out of 5 stars)

"As others have noted, the sexy cover is highly misleading. This movie is kind of a mess, in that it tries to be some kind of erotic thriller but it's shot in such a self-consciously artsy-fartsy manner that it ends up being incoherent. The video quality is very low, and to add insult to injury is pan & scan. This is 2009...what kind of self-respecting video company is releasing P&S movies? Not one that wants to stay in business long."