Joy

(Sergio Bergonzelli, 1983)
On the box the director tries to pass as "Serge Bergon", which gives you a hint about this softcore epic's classy-French aesthetic. Rene Verzier's cinematography is slick as two eels fucking in a bucket of snot, and the exceedingly pretty Claudia Udy has a sketchy traumatic backstory which is supposed to motivate her voyage into kink. There's an orgy-with-bartender, a Tantric sex circle, a nude photo shoot on a Mexican beach, and a large circular room with a hydraulic chair. Funny thing though - everyone in this sex-obsessed world seems to come in twenty seconds, when they make it at all. Talk about much ado about nothing! I was bewildered until the credits rolled, around the 73-minute mark - a full half hour below the imdb-listed running time. This isn't porn, it's a collage film commissioned by the Censor Board, who apparently think kinky sex is all right if you come in twenty seconds. I seriously doubt that I missed much, but I do resent having to guess.