Strong and Moving!

Admirable film.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

Raffaella, who is a rich woman, her husband, and their rich friends rent a yacht and go sailing in the Mediterranean. She and her husband carry on screaming arguments about political ideology, with Raffaella expressing her fascist views with much vehemence. We all expect Italians in movies to be passionate, but we have never seen anything like this. Gennarino is a deckhand and a communist, whom she treats like dirt.When Raffaella and Gennarino get stranded on a deserted island, he decides to reverse roles with a vengeance. He beats her into submission, forcing her to call him Signor Carunchio, while calling her Raffaella (when not calling her a bitch or an industrial whore), instead of Signora Lanzetti, as he did on board the yacht. Then, when all this verbal and physical abuse has finally made her want him to ravish her brutally, he says that is not enough. She must tell him she loves him, kiss his feet, and worship him like a god. She actually does kiss his feet and submit to him totally, falling madly in love with him. But he still beats her whenever she misbehaves, as when she presumes to think instead of doing what she is told.This may be a minor point, but it is odd that Gennarino, the communist, believes that women should be totally subservient to men, which we would be more likely to associate with fascism.Anyway, the day finally arrives when a boat comes within sight of the island. Raffaella does not want to signal them because she fears being rescued might spoil their happiness. But Gennarino believes that only if they are rescued can he be sure that she truly loves him. Once rescued, Raffaella might have been able to thwart public opinion and marry Gennarino, but when she sees him being greeted by his wife, who talks about their children, she has misgivings. But given Gennarino's attitude toward women, why should he care about what happens to his wife? He wants Raffaella to go back and live on the island with him, but she decides against it. He reverts to calling her a bitch and an industrial whore.Because this is a comedy, we hesitate to take it too seriously, but there simply is not enough humor in this movie to overcome the revulsion we feel at the way he treats her, especially since the movie seems to prove he is right in believing that a man can make a woman love him by degrading her and beating her.

This film is a time capsule of the 1970s in Italy and today many who view the film may not understand the context. At that time, there was quite a political schism in the country between the conservative and leftist wings of government. So this film can be enjoyed on two levels--one being a microcosm of the political and philosophical differences between the far right and far left. To me, though, this is not a great strength of this film, as the female lead is just too far right to be representative of the average political conservative--just the most rabidly extreme and one-dimensional. She was more a combination of a Fascist and ultra-Capitalist who sees the common people as riffraff to do her bidding--a horrid combination to say the least! He, on the other hand, was very pro-Communist but seemed like a much more reasonable person. So, if this WAS intended as political satire, the deck was definitely unfairly stacked in one direction--but it is still very interesting.Now if you DON'T see this as political satire, it's a much more enjoyable film. Instead of all the Italian politics, it's basically the story of a super-rich and super-selfish woman (Mariangela Melato) who mistreats everyone she considers her inferior (i.e., anyone not rich). On board a luxury yacht that was chartered, she is constantly demanding, whiny and NEVER appreciative of anything--treating those working on the ship as if they were idiots. You REALLY wanted to see something horrid happen to her! One of the crew members who comes to hate her most (and deservedly so) is Giancarlo Giannini--who is simply tired of her abuse but has held his tongue in order to keep his job.Eventually, through a strange series of events orchestrated by Melato, she and Giannini become shipwrecked on a deserted island. While there is fresh water and enough to eat, life is hard and the lady is ill-prepared for survival--as she expects Giannini to continue playing the role of a servant!! Well, this doesn't last long as their primitive lifestyle also calls for a more primitive relationship--with Giannini playing the strong clan leader and Melato as HIS servant!!! At first, she balks at this--that is until he brutalizes her until she shuts up and does everything she is told! This is very satisfying to watch. Rarely would I enjoy seeing anyone slapped around, but believe me, the writers did a great job of setting this up and getting the viewer to sympathize.Now where the film goes next is probably pretty realistic but also makes this a VERY adult film. Considering that they both are relatively young and good-looking, it's not surprising that the film becomes very sexual. I understand why the film went this direction but this makes it totally inappropriate for kids or even teens--especially when he ultimately forces himself on her. In addition, later they discuss sodomy--another topic most responsible parents don't want the little kids learning about from a film!! This aspect may also make the film uncomfortable for many adult viewers--particularly rape victims. However, if you are able to look beyond this, the film is in many ways quite erotic and even romantic.There is really MUCH more to the film than this. The film is super original, fascinating and well-made. It just MIGHT not be what you are looking for--please consider the content of this film before watching.UPDATE 9/10--I just saw the silent movie "Male and Female" which was based on the J.M. Barrie play "The Admiral Crichton" and can now see where the writer/director of "Swept Away" got her inspiration. Clearly "Swept Away" is a re-working of this earlier story, though unlike Lina Wertmüller's strong secular-humanist/communist leanings, the silent film was, at times, very preachy and religious. Interesting and a film fans of Wertmüller should see.

What makes this film so interesting is that it involves you in it's conversations and hidden meanings. Though, the part that is the most shocking in this movie is how the poor sailor treats the rich woman. To me the movie showed the problems with communist and capitalist societies. Though I believe that it shows the dictatorial prone communism is even more dangerous than the deprived consumer obsessed capitalist society that can lead to the exploitation and the expansion of the underclass.One interesting contrast is that the poor sailor looses his temper every time he is asked to do something, for which is payed. Than out of retaliation he simply enslaves the rich woman on the island, by using ancient yet affective method of violence. While the other view is that the capitalist woman treats the sailor with utmost disrespect, even though he is payed, to her he is nothing more than a figurative slave.In the beginning of the film the rich woman comments that communism ultimately leads to totalitarian dictatorship and that is exactly what happens on the island. Some confusion comes in when she enjoy's being a slave, though I think that is a different offshoot of the argument that the director is trying to make.There are many more such examples through the film, and I hope my insight is not too far off the mark and is somewhat helpful.

SWEPT AWAY is a genuinely artistic, intelligent, and thought-provoking film that uses a simple story to deal with many complicated issues. However, it's also a product of the school of thought that advocates (1) frustrating audience expectations in the name of artistic evolution, and (2) being as downbeat as possible in the name of realism. The result is a film that I can appreciate at an intellectual level, but can't genuinely enjoy at some deeper gut level.The story is a variation on a theme that's probably as old as literature itself -- the role reversal that results from a master and servant being "swept away" from a world governed by the master's rules and into a world governed only by the law of survival. The master in this case is Raffaella Pavone Lanzetti (Mariangela Melato), a high-society lady to whom reheated coffee and undercooked spaghetti are major crises. (In fact, the spaghetti was NOT undercooked; Raffaella had never heard of al dente.) Ms. Lanzetti is also offended by the hired help's sweaty T-shirts, apparently unaware that if you perform manual labor in the hot summer sun and the hotter galley of your husband's yacht, a significant amount of sweat is inevitable. The servant is Gennarino Carunchio (Giancarlo Giannini), one of the workers on the yacht, who suffers the largest share of Raffaella 's complaining and derision. In the first part of the film, Gennarino spends much time muttering about how he'd like to get his hand on Raffaella for five minutes.Gennarino gets to act on his stored-up anger when he and Raffaella get stranded on a deserted island. And herein lies the first example of the film deliberately frustrating the audience. A traditional drama would let us see one character as the hero and the other as the villain. Or, possibly, we'd be asked to see both of them as heroes, villains, or mixed bags. In any case, we'd be able to decide who we were going to sympathize with throughout the story. But SWEPT AWAY continually turns the tables on you. Until they get to the island, your heart is going out to Gennarino, and you would dearly love to dump a plate of that al dente spaghetti on Raffaella 's head. (BTW, you actually get to see something like that happen in the Madonna remake.) But when the worm turns, the "lesson" Gennarino gives Raffaella is so cruel, brutal, and sadistic that it seems way out of proportion to the offense she committed against him -- especially since it goes on so relentlessly for so long. Furthermore, we realize that Raffaella 's attitude toward Gennarino wasn't so much due to malice as ignorance. Her high-society world is all she knows. And we wonder if Gennarino should perhaps have taken that into account. We also wonder if Gennarino really is the vile creature that Raffaella has accused him of being.But we're forced to switch sympathies yet again -- back to Gennarino -- when they get off the island. By this time, they've fallen in love -- or so they believe -- which begs the question of what's going to happen to their relationship when they get back to Raffaella 's high-society world.I can't tell you what happens, but I will tell you that the message we're left with is not the one I suspect we were supposed to expect. I'm guessing we're supposed to hope for an upbeat statement about how these two different classes of people can learn from each other. Instead SWEPT AWAY seems to be saying that's a bunch of hogwash, contrary to what you and the two main characters might have wanted to believe.Of course that could just be the truth, and the upbeat message I spoke of could be trite and corny, which SWEPT AWAY definitely isn't. The power struggle and love/hate relationship between Raffaella and Gennarino serves as a vehicle to explore a lot of complicated issues about class struggles and conflicting values, and maybe where we end up is where the filmmaker honestly believes all this exploring is supposed to take you.But the end result -- for me, at least -- is that SWEPT AWAY might be a great material for a master's thesis, but not for a fun evening.