The Eroticist is a political satire from Lucio Fulci. Originally titled
All'onorevole piaciono le donne, or The Senator Likes Women, it is the story of
an Italian senator who is a presidential hopeful, supported by the church.
The would-be president he has been groomed for his role from birth by a
cardinal, and part of his training was regular instruction on the evils of
women. During the election, newsreel footage surfaces which shows him pinching
the bottom of a female head of state. It comes as a great surprise, as he had
been thought to be gay. A priest decides to take two actions. First, he will
blackmail him, and second, he will take him to a Dominican shrink and get him
cured. Unfortunately, the Dominican lives in a convent, and after the senator
leaves, supposedly cured, 21 of the 22 nuns confess that he ravished them.
Rather than being cured, he is worse than ever. No longer content with grabbing
clothed bottoms, he wants to do much more with naked ones. This is, of course, a
potential disaster for his campaign.
Things go from bad to worse when the one nun he missed, Laura Antonelli,
arrives to convince him to whip the evil out of her, after which she will whip
the evil out of him.
They actually come up with a much better idea.
The government, the military and the police all come under the gun in what
might be Fulci's best film, but the film fires its most devastating broadsides
at the
church. One of the cardinals, for instance, canonizes his enemies by murdering
them, then turning them into plaster saints. In another scene, the cardinal is
laying prostrate and praying when he is told that the senator is causing a
scandal. He shouts "Christ."
Because this film takes several swings at nearly every Italian institution,
it has been subjected to heavy censorship through the years. The new Severin release runs 1:49:31, whereas
IMDb lists it as 1:36:00, making this the most complete version to date. It is
in Italian with English subtitles, and includes a short subject about censorship
in Italy, especially in relation to this film. Fans of Fulci and European cinema will want to add this edition to their
library, not only because it is a worthy film from an noteworthy director, but
also because it is fun, has great nudity and now comes in an excellent,
(presumably) uncensored transfer.
