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Swept Away

Swept Away (1974)

December. 18,1974
|
7.5
| Drama Comedy Romance

A spoiled rich woman and a brutish Communist deckhand become stranded alone on a desert island after venturing away from their cruise.

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Pluskylang
1974/12/18

Great Film overall

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CommentsXp
1974/12/19

Best movie ever!

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Zlatica
1974/12/20

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

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Geraldine
1974/12/21

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

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gavin6942
1974/12/22

A trip into the Mediterranean sea becomes a trip into the discovery of how society's frameworks of the rich and poor are delicate and temporary.In his review in the Chicago Sun-Times, American film critic Roger Ebert gave the film four stars, his highest rating. Ebert wrote that the film "resists the director's most determined attempts to make it a fable about the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, and persists in being about a man and a woman. On that level, it's a great success." I'm on board with Ebert. I think this film was exceptional. Emotionally, it was raw, and I have to praise the performers and the director for the intensity. How you get a love story out of deep economic and political hatred, I don't know, but they pull it off. And despite the violence and abuse, there is something deeper here. Really a great film with something powerful to say.

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Michael_Elliott
1974/12/23

Swept Away (1974) **** (out of 4) Rich woman Raffaella Lanzetti (Mariangela Melato) and her servant Gennarino Carunchio (Giancarlo Giannini) end up being taken away from their boat as the current sweeps them away and onto a deserted island. Now that the tables are turned and her money isn't going to save her, Gennarino plans to teach the woman a lesson about life. Lina Wertmuller's SWEPT AWAY has been called a masterpiece by many, a evil picture by some and there are certainly some that fall somewhere in between. I think the reason there are so many mixed reviews of this film is that it's so hard to fully put your hands on it. I mean, a hundred different people could attend a screening of this film and then afterwards each of them would see something different. Is it a drama? It is a political message about living conditions between the rich and poor? Is it some sort of dark comedy where the poor man gets his day in the sun? SWEPT AWAY is a film I really loved watches even if parts of it certainly rubbed me the wrong way. The opening twenty-minutes or so clearly set up that this rich woman is rather heartless, cruel and uncaring about anyone other than herself. When she gets lost at sea you're happy to see her get a dose of reality but at the same time I can't say I enjoyed how she got it. There were times where the man physically abuses her and I must admit that this didn't make me care for him any or cheer for him to "teach" the rich woman. Yet, the film takes these ugly moments and does stuff with them that most films wouldn't dare try, nevermind actually making them work. Another rather remarkable thing is how much you can believe what you're seeing. I'm not going to ruin what actually happens but director Wertmuller really makes you believe it from start to finish and talk about the perfect ending. The film contains some very harsh language and some ugly violence but in its own pay these scenes are rather poetic. Another major plus is that both Melato and Giannini turn in two of the greatest performances you're going to see. Both of them were simply terrific in their roles and even when the tables are turned, both of them are believable and really sell the fire and passion of the story. SWEPT AWAY is a very unique film that's quite unlike any other including the countless imitations that have been released. The film manages to work on so many levels and it's greatness is also what many might see as ugliness.

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bracketj
1974/12/24

Swept Away is criticized by Tania Modleski for poking fun at feminists. That is part of the film's accomplishment, though: Swept Away is culturally valuable for its ability to poke fun at everyone whose flaws warrant it. Wertmuller presents us with extreme characters in absurd situations—characters we love to hate but who are still capable of moving us when they express sincere emotional tenderness and vulnerability. This story explores the ways in which political and economic divisions allow pig-headed people to treat each other. And it certainly doesn't support the oppression of women, as a short-sighted viewing of the film may suggest, because Wertmuller emphasizes the notion that relationships based on one's ability to dominate the other perpetually fail. Whether that dominance comes from political, economic, or gender roles, domination and subjugation create such mistrust in both parties that love cannot sustain itself. Wertmuller masterfully creates type characters—the rich bitch and the vengeful Sicilian—who turn into human beings outside of society and touch the audience with their attempt and failure at love. The elements of composition, music and lighting are used in such a beautiful way that the audience is convinced throughout the couple's stay on the island that love is possible, despite the divisive odds against them, and so their fall is that much more saddening at the end of the film. And the often harsh dialog and action are Wertmuller's bright way of presenting a farcical tale to her audience, daring us to judge the characters lest we be judged.

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fred-houpt
1974/12/25

The entire premise of the accidentally positioned relationship of the sailor with the rich and spoiled woman is entirely contrived and like a very well oiled opera, it spins in surprising circles, taking us to places we did not anticipate when we first meet the characters.Where it could have fallen into a parody or in its simplest form, a Marxist diatribe, the director raises the form into metaphor and both shocks and surprises us along the way. I can imagine that when this film first came out in 1974, the public must have gasped at several things: there are several moments in the film when the sailor just explodes in a rageful outpouring of physical abuse to the lovely lady. In short, he beats her about the face and wrestles with her until she is quite roughed up. The repeated slapping is still hard to watch, even if you think in your mind that these are well trained actors. The overt machismo that the sailor humiliates the lady with is both laughable and grotesque by our standards. Sure the film is making fun of Italian men and especially at the expense of the so-called coarser Southern Italian men and even more the Sicilian men....but it is so overdone that it too rises to metaphor. He struts about like a liberated tyrant, cave-man, looking for every opportunity to enjoy sweet revenge over his hapless companion. What does he achieve? He certainly does break her down and destroys every vestige of her snobby, boorish, disrespectful, artificial outer self and when pealed away what emerges is her long suppressed tender and humbled self. Listen: some people, usually men, go and seek some lunatic guru up in the mountains to help them attain this type of simplicity and humility, so the idea in itself is not far fetched. The difference is that this lady did not choose her fate on the island, did not go seeking humility; it was the only way to survive and in a way here lies an important aspect of Wertmuller's film. Is she asking us: what control do we have when forces much greater than us (poverty in particular as exemplified by the sailor and his laments) push us to limits of endurance? What type of people do we become? Wertmuller is also asking us: the rich have so many more choices, including cultivating their own sense of place and humility in the world and that they do not cannot be attributed to the same stresses that tear apart the poor. I'm simplifying but this seems to be one of the underlying themes.Other themes: the sailor takes advantage of a situation that presents itself in his life for the first time. Sure he's been working hard all his life and he's still the lackey cleaning up the crap of the rich. And, he's totally unappreciated by his family. Now, he can work just as hard but call ALL of the shots including sexual domination and physical appreciation. He certainly did not set out to win over the lovely lady but after seeing how dependent she was and how unaware of her own self sufficiency, he saw an opportunity to dominate and over a woman! The temptation was too great to let alone. She is everything he has fantasized about (without admitting it) and he taunts her with the very same thoughts.And then let's look at passion and love. Where the chemical attraction ends (and by the last third of the film there is plenty of that) there appears to be true and passionate love. At this point I started to feel completely caught up in their torrid affair and the tenderness the sailor finally gives to her just melts your heart. Underneath all that caveman behavior is a very soft hearted and loving man, who never had an outlet for his feelings. Sure he acts like a child, demanding love only on his terms, but that's not the point. They are both childish in their own ways. What the film leaves in your mind...how is it that such diametrically opposed and different people can scratch and crawl their way into passionate and REAL love? And while the film leaves you believing in the truth of their passions, it evaporates at the end, leaving me, at least, very upset at the outcome. Of course Wurtmuller could have opted for the happy ending and then what? In a sense it would have become just too ridiculous, becoming a lampoon of what was uncovered between them. In life, these types of illicit affairs are very often ephemeral and while short lived, very hot. And then they disappear into thin air. Do we seek the romantic ending we wished the film to have taken or do we accept the bitterness of the sailor, cursing much more than the rich lady: his fate yet again returning as bitter as ever; he returning to be a smelly lout of a husband, dragging behind his wife as she barely endures his presence.Giannini gives a towering performance which although teeters on comic self parody, he inhabits his role and lets his inner self evolve as the moment changes. Never over acting even when in a full rage, showing gentleness and hot passion in perfect balance, he is awesome as the rough edged sailor, going nowhere in life. Mariangela Melato is simply gorgeous and sexy and has the time of her life with this role. The two of them took risks as actors but the sparks all seemed so real. You just don't see movies made like this today because we live in politically correct times. Films like this and Linsday Anderson's "IF" would either shock us or else would have been ignored as too artsy. I loved this film and the way it moved my heart.

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