Baba Yaga
- Score
- 6
Surprising faithful translation of Crepax's erotic adventure hero, Valentina, even duping his famed panel montages.
By Tym Stevens
Named after the ambivilent Wiccan myth, this is actually an adaption of the Valentina comics albums by Crepax.
In the mid-'60s, Guido Crepax rocked swinging Rome with his odd superhero comic, "Neutron". The hero, who could paralyze villains, had a hip girlfriend named Valentina Rosselli, who stole the strip away like he was standing still. In the era of the Mod dollybird, the photog Valentina wore pants and gave David Bailey a hard run for shooting the happening scene. Her world was Antonioni's Blow Up with all the unbridled hedonism of Fellini's Satyricon.
Crepax's complex montages, like Hitchcock storyboards of erotic bacchanals dreamed by De Sade, earned critical acclaim for their craft and censors ire over the escalating sadomasochism. Tailor-cut for film, they are reverently reproduced in this moody and sultry film by Corrado Farina.