Stavros

Today I'm putting my awesome powers of subtitle reading to check out some awesome Italian features I stumbled upon last week. "Stavros" looks like an impressive Italian movie and I'm hoping for a little of that European storytelling to come through in this tale of an Italian magnate name Stavros Mintas.

First off, this movie might be Italian but it's dubbed in German with English subtitles. I'm not normally a fan of dubbing, usually the original actors are far more evocative of the role, I'm especially not a fan of dubbing and subtitles at the same time. Extra negative points when the dubs are horribly off sync with the actor on screen whose face is just a little bit above the subtitles so you'd have to be blind to miss out on just how off they are.

The film takes the form of a documentary, complete with period recreations, floating heads in dark rooms reminiscing about the past and bogus commercials. Soon, despite the terrible and distracting dubbing I found myself swept into the mock-umentary and had to remind myself that there should be some hardcore sex coming at some point. Honestly the plot and direction was so smoothly carried through that I kept going back to the movie's page to double check that, yes, there were sex scenes in it and, yes, those sexy bits should be coming soon.

The sex scenes when they came are beautifully placed within the plot. They seem to come naturally as part of the tale of Stavros' life rather than something that was forced in where ever it would fit. Some of them even feature a brunette who's never as beautiful as she is naked on screen. Unfortunately these scenes came off about as hot as a Playgirl feature, which is to say - not very. Overly stylized and though there's plenty of T&A and thrusting, all the passion seems to have ended up on the cutting room floor. Perhaps it was the dubbing's fault again (sex scenes should never ever be dubbed, it sounds completely fake). Though I must admit I did adore the complete cast full of natural tits.

Honestly I think they missed the ball with the sex trying to continue the seriousness of the plotline and documentary style of the film instead of wallowing in the hot sweatiness of the moment. The first step "Stavros" could have taken towards being a more passionate porno - better lighting, second less editing. Kisses lose all their passion because the performers are careful to keep their distance so the cameraman can film the dance of their tongues. Writhing, moaning and sex are carefully staged so that even though the sex is clear it still feels horribly fake and the dark lighting (and horrible dubs) only lend to that illusion.

"Stavros" was mostly a film about guys being complete misogynistic asses and how that worked out really well for most of them involved. In a way the stilted highly stylized and rarely hot sex scenes perfectly matched the plotline and dry mock-umentary style which is kind of an awesome/awful thing. It's a story told really well that just happens to have a lot of sex in it, unfortunately I don't think this is something that'll get many off.