(349) NIGHT GAMES [Nattlek] (1966) (X) Mai Zettlerling erotica
1753DVD
Arguably
the Most Important Erotic Film of the Sixties
"This film broke Taboos and introduced Sexuality
to the Cinema!"
director:
Mai Zetterling
starring: Ingrid Thulin ˇ Keve Hjelm ˇ Jorgen Lindstrom ˇ Lena Brundin
ˇ Naima Wifstrand
On
the eve of his wedding, a man named Jan (played by Keve Hjelm) returns
to the mansion of his youth to discover why he is impotent. His story
unravels through a series of flashbacks which include orgies, incest and
his mother's unbridled aristocratic debauchery. Jan wants only to erase
the sexual horror of his childhood and with the help of his fiancé he
attempts to face nearly every sexual taboo know to man.
Here's
one of a handful of movies directed by Mai Zetterling, an actress-turned-filmmaker
in the mid-sixties. Originally, endorsed by Ingmar Bergman, she arrived
in England from Sweden in the late '40s. For over a decade, Mai was a
popular actress and starred in many big budget productions. She turned
to directing in the early Sixties, first with David Hughes and then on
her own. For NIGHT GAMES [Nattlek], she decided
to push the censorship barriers and this film became the International
"test case for obscenity."
Some
countries, like Italy, banned the film (the officials would not allow
it to play the Venice film Festival in 1966) while other markets wrestled
with its controversy. In the United States, the movie was chosen to play
the San Francisco Film Festival, but many problems erupted when one of
the Board of Directors - former child actress Shirley Temple - quit to
protest the decision to show it. She was vocal about it being pornography
and demanded censorship. The movie played in a limited release to the
U.S. Art Houses and became the target for countless censorship lawsuits
before it disappeared.
Toward
the end of her life, Mai Zetterling was lured back into acting. She played
the resilient grandmother who tangled with Anjelica Huston in The
Witches (1990). Ms Zetterling died from cancer at age 68 in 1994.
A Swedish
film in Swedish language with English subtitles; widescreen format, uncut
version at 105 minutes, DVD encoded for ALL REGION NTSC WORLD FORMAT.
Extras include trailers.
Violence/Incest/Rape/Nudity/Perversions/Sexual
Brutality
For Adult audiences only