This is the original version of the movie from Italy, not the lousy remake Madonna was in. She can sing, but she can really ruin a good movie. The full Italian title of this movie is, “Swept Away by an Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August”. Is that title long enough for you ?

The movie stars Giancarlo Giannini as the long abused crewmember, Gennerino Carunchio, serving on the rented yacht of a wealthy couple, Raffaella Pavone Lanzetti (played by Mariangela Melato) and Senor Pavone Lanzetti (played by Ricardo Salvino).

Playing the part of a beautiful, wealthy, highly-privileged woman, Raffaella takes endless pleasure in verbally abusing Gennerino over nearly everything, but especially about his Communist politics. When an unusual event at sea leaves Gennerino and Raffaella as castaways on an isolated Mediterranean island, the tables are finally turned, and the Communist waiter suddenly has the upper hand in his relationship with Raffaella.

Raffaella is now totally dependent on Gennerino for her survival, from food to shelter. Many reviewers criticized the film as deeply misogynistic, with its themes of violence against women, subjugation, and abuse. Anthony Kaufman from the Village Voice called the film possibly the most outrageously misogynist film ever made by a woman. Others responded by saying that those who focused on the misogyny simply didn’t understand the film’s message about class warefare. I tend to agree with this point of view. I think the sexual violence in this movie can be analyzed as political violence within the framework of patriarchal politics and the film’s concern with a symbolic presentation of social revolt.

Interestingly, when Raffaella and Gennerino are rescued at the end and are returned to the normal world, they revert back to their original roles before they were faced with survival. Raffaella goes back to her husband, and Gennerino goes back to his wife, and life goes on as it did before.

I think this movie is a study of romance with a framework of social class warefare. The acting and story is excellent and I would highly recommend it if you haven’t seen it.

I wanted to post a video with this, but I could only find ones with Madonna.sorry. I really feel she ruins this film, so I didn’t bother. See the original from Italy !

editdeletereply lauritasita wrote on May 21, ’08 Great Italian film !

deletereply philsgal7759 wrote on May 21, ’08 “Swept Away by an Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August” Maybe the title comes out shorter in Italian but yeah that’s long. Ewwwwwwwww would not be interesyed in seeing Madonna in any movie she should keep her day job. I am not a big fan but I’ll concede she has a voice Now as for this movie, it sounds like it could easily be interpreted either way. w/o seeing it I will reserve judgment. Thanks for participating.

deletereply philsgal7759 wrote on May 22, ’08 Oh by the way no spaces here I’m checking out your poetry blog

deletereply skeezicks1957 wrote on May 22, ’08 It sounds interesting!  Thanks for the post.