Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

Sadly Over-hyped

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Anita is a nubile sixteen year old girl living in a bleak industrial town somewhere in the wilds of Sweden. She has a problem, in that her reputation in the town is at a low due to the fact that she insists on propositioning every man she meets - young or old, mostly ugly - and then giving them a blow job and sometimes more. The local girls call her a "slut", the local lads rough her up and her parents dismiss her in favour of her swat of a younger sister. Eventually Anita runs away to Stockholm (nobody misses her) and is lucky enough to hook up with a cute and well-mannered young man who not only falls in love with her but also understands that she's a textbook example of a nymphomaniac (him having access to the textbooks as he is a psychology student). The young man falls in love with Anita and eventually they get together, once Anita has been cured of her nymphomania by having an orgasm with a lesbian lover. Hold on, the plot goes a bit mad at the end there, doesn't it? Anita the film is as schizoid as its protagonist. It comes on like a particularly bleak version social realist cinema, all grimy interiors and ruined or soulless exteriors and does go some way to suggesting that Anita's sexual compulsiveness is an outcome of a particularly loveless family life (a la Ken Loach's film of the same name) in the context of a meaningless consumer society of shopping malls and urban development. Yet at the same time, the film voyeuristically finds excuse after excuse for getting the gorgeous actress (Christina Lindberg) who plays Anita naked at every opportunity. It is as if the film is itself suffering from the same compulsion as its heroine, and what's more it expects its audience to be suffering from the same malady.In the final third, the film loses all pretence to realism, with the completely gratuitous soft-core lesbian footage and an equally unnecessary trip to a strip joint, where Anita supports a saucy dancer in her routine. Logic is thrown completely out of the window, as Anita's completely unbelievable "cure" leads to her settling down to a life of doe-eyed monogamous bliss with her psychiatric student now boyfriend, ending in a church where the organ player notices them canoodling and so strikes up one of those jaunty & jolly tunes that we expect to find at the close of one of the late 60s Carry On films.Anita - Swedish Nymphet (as it is currently know in its UK DVD release) is certainly not a film which has anything much constructive to say on the subject of sexual compulsion (although its portrait of the malady in the first hour is convincing enough); instead, it's rather more intriguing as a symptom of the sexual compulsion of the society which made it and watched it: like the men accosted by Anita, the makers and viewers of the film may be made uncomfortable by her excesses but they aren't saying "no" to taking part in them themselves, compulsively.

Anita: Swedish Nymphet (1973) ** (out of 4) Cult star Christina Lindberg of Thriller: A Cruel Picture fame stars as Anita, a 16-year-old girl who has to have sex and it doesn't matter with who. She picks up lawyers, junkies, little boys, drunks or even the homeless. Her sexual behavior gets her kicked out of towns but one day she meets a doctor who thinks he can help her. This Swedish picture is rather strange because it's certainly a sexploitation title and the main goal is for the beautiful Lindberg to get naked every chance she gets but the overall tone of the movie is so serious that it's hard to have fun with the film. The story is pretty straight forward, which means it gets pretty boring as it rarely goes over the top outside of a 16-year-old wanting any guy she can get. As for Lindberg, this is only the second film I've seen with her but she certainly deserves her cult status. She's certainly easy on the eyes but unlike a lot of erotic stars, she can also act and she brings a lot life to her character.

The best thing about "Anita" is that is supposed to work within the sexploitation genre, and it is actually a subtle and insightful social critique -well, at least in the first sixty minutes. To someone who's looking for crude, hardcore sex scenes (myself included), this movie is may be disappointing, but for a feminist researcher the movie's angle points out and contextualizes patriarchy and domination as main causes of social "ilness." Just watch the perspective of the movie, and you'll see a "lylja-for-ever" for the seventies.In addition, the movie suggests an interesting development of the relationship between the psychology student/psychoanalyst/'doctor' and his patient Anita. At one point, you can see the parallel between the authoritarian/ disengaged father and the psychoanalyst, and both of them are exercising power over the nymphomaniac character. However, Hendrix becomes involved in the story (he hangs on the door where the full human contact-I mean the orgasm- takes place), and we get a sweaty non-convincing highly idealized ending.I would watch this movie again to see: 1. the construction of anita's character as an outcast 2. the whole symbolism behind the young student's actions: feeding her, putting the band aides on, offering her a community where she is actually defended 3. the dysfunctional family 4. the sad scenes of sex that reminds me how the porn industry is using my fantasies. but hey, I kinda like this, though...

I saw this disc offered by Synapse at the latest Horrorfind Convention, and immediately the cover of a topless Christina Lindberg caught my attention. I didn't purchase the disc at the convention, but needless to say, I grabbed this one up the first chance I had.ANITA is the story of a misunderstood 17-year-old nymphomaniac outcast (Lindberg) who bones anyone and everyone in sight. Shunned by her family and everyone in town, Anita whiles away her days and nights in the arms (and beds, and floors, and coat-rooms, etc...) of any willing man (and in some cases, woman) she lays eyes on. During one of her clandestine "rendevous'" she accidentally runs into (literally...) a young psychology student who takes an interest in her and her "illness". The two form a platonic friendship as the budding psychologist attempts to figure out the cause, and better yet, a cure for young Anita's ailment...Honestly - this film isn't that great. It's a little too serious in tone to be a fun, sexploit style erotic romp - and yet a bit too shallow to be very thought-provoking. Lindberg looks amazing (as usual...) and does a decent job of playing the role of the conflicted, sometimes ruthless, but always "fragile", girl-next-doorish sex-addict - and as would be expected, she provides several nude-scenes (the main reason for my above average rating). Unfortunately, as this film seems to try to be a semi-serious "case-study" of this troubled young girl - the sex scenes are more sad than arousing. It's also a damn shame that Lindberg never did any hard-core scenes, as this would have easily gotten this film a 37-out-of-10 from me. Serious Lindberg fans will most definitely wanna cop this one, most others will probably find it pretty dull. At least it's FAR better than the extremely boring Swedish WILDCATS, which also has Lindberg in it - but she is grossly underused in that film. 7/10 for ANITA - but only because of the several Lindberg nude shots...