Erótica

It is a sad sight to watch this unnecessary remake of Emilio Fernández' own 1953 minor classic "La red", which was awarded at the Cannes film festival for its visual narration. Fernández had become too concerned with sex by the Seventies, and from "La choca" (1974) to his last motion pictures he filmed stories that –perceived through a traditional filter more appropriate for his rural classics of the 1940s, as "Flor silvestre" and "Pueblerina"– seemed moralistic and outdated. He even forced credibility to the limit: the loot of the initial robbery is gone by the first reel, apparently spent on an art director's beach hut, and make-up for Erótica (Rebeca Silva), so she and her husband (Jaime Moreno) have to sell sponges to survive. Erótica walks into town with her breasts hardly covered, people go on as usual with their businesses; everybody knows they are fugitives, but they protect them, including the French owner of a bar. When the third party of the love triangle that forms the basis of the story arrives in town, he and Erótica meet at the local church, where she usually goes wearing her airy "blouse", and the local priest has identified her as a "mysterious woman". Not much goes on until Fernández himself arrives as Fernández to bring some order into town. Though attractive in her own terms, Silva is far from the beautiful Italian actress Rossana Podestà (who was not called Erótica in the original film, but Rossana, apparently a part written for her). In a reversal of roles, the older guy (who in the first version was the "husband"), as played by Rivero past his prime, is now the disruptive force in the love triangle; while Moreno, a weak player, is definitely not a rival to Rivero. Both hunks are full of muscles, but none evokes the disrupting sensuality that Armando Silvestre projected in the original. Watch "La red" instead and avoid this potboiler.