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To me, this movie is perfection.

It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

When assessing the fighting that occurs between Raffaella and Gennarino in Lina Wertmuller's Swept Away (1974), many critics are led to believe that the movie discusses sexual roles in society, or Gennarino's misogyny, as Raffaella becomes subordinate and is slapped many times by the male Gennarino. Thinking of this satirical film solely in terms of the battle of the sexes only diverts viewers' attention away from the political meaning, which is much more distinct: the conflict between social classes and the rivalry between Italy's richer north and poorer southern region. The moral point of this satire is to depict the timeless clash of the two most opposing political views at the time the film was made in 1974. Only by considering the political situation in Italy in the 1970s, a period laden with social conflicts, and paying heed to the political dialogues and symbolism in the movie, can one truly understand the satirical theme of Swept Away. In Swept Away, political discussions among the characters are shown from the beginning to the end of the movie. The two main characters are not only separate by gender, but also by region of birth, class and politics. Gennarino considers the capitalist society as evil and is a committed Communist, while Raffaella is a raving capitalist. Even though a New York Times article addresses this movie as "Lina Wertmuller's Epic Battle of Sexes" alluding only to the physical fights between the two main characters, one should remember that for each slap on Raffaella's face, Gennarino names an evil deed the north Italian capitalists have done to the poor, which brings us back to the conflict of classes. But some insist there is no political content at all in this movie. Tania Modleski finds it an antifeminist, misogynist, film about men's sexual fantasies and sexual roles and attitudes in society, that the scenery of a desert island only makes the plot a classic masculine porno fantasy and an insult to feminists. Moreover, the author Lina Wertmuller despises ugly women, as the lovely beauty of Raffaella throughout the movie is towards to the end contrasted with the ugliness and unpleasant manners of Gennarino's wife. Lina Wertmuller has been indeed attacked from critics on feminist grounds. One of the misogynist critics brings up these questions: "For was not Wertmuller humiliating the woman merely to cram down our throats the spurious thesis that a work-class lover is so virile that we would at once be Swept Away by his abusive charm? That Woman secretly wishes to be abused and in fact can attain sexual gratification only by submitting to violence and degradation? And this thesis from a woman who calls herself a revolutionary? Are Wertmuller's women mere cows, anxious to be mastered and abused?" (Melle 82). Most of the feminist criticism centers on the scenes of physical fighting on the island, where Gennarino only uses violence as a reaction against his learning and socio-cultural limitations, of which Raffaella tirelessly makes him aware. Raffaella is a blonde, blue-eyed northern Italian; her northern accent is meant to be more sophisticated than that of the dark-skinned Gennarino, who speaks with a rustic and thick Sicilian accent. Not only because of their different accents, but the fights are also regarding their class inability to communicate that includes a mixture of difficult vocabulary and different values. The movie shows us a conflict of classes between two opposing stereotypes representing two extreme different worlds, the rich and the poor, the capitalist and the communist, the North and the South, the "pale" the "dark" skinned Italians. This conflict of classes reflects Italy's social reality of the time when Swept Away was released, in 1974, when the Italian political context in the late 1960s was characterized by social disorder, which resulted in a difficult and contradictory situation in the 1970s, the time when advanced and traditional sections of society got in disagreements creating serious national problems between north and south. In Swept Away, Wertmuller intelligently explores human emotions through the interaction of classes that defines and motivates not only Gennarino and Rafaella's behavior but also everyone's reality under capitalist society. On the yacht Gennarino works hard but his work does not mean anything, Rafaella maintains the position of a boss because of an accident of birth. She does not earn her position; she does not work for this position. While on the island Gennarino works and his work gives him power. He feeds them, hunts, builds the fire, and creates a place to sleep. His work has value while Rafaella's accident of birth does not guarantee a privileged position anymore. Perhaps, reviews should focus more on the issue of class rather than finding it misogynist. Works CitedCanby, Vincent. "Lina Wertmuller's Epic Battle of Sexes." New York Times. September 21, 1975: x15.Mellen, Joan. "On Lina Wertmuller." Society. October 12, 2007: 82-84.Modleski, Tania. "Wertmuller's Women Swept Away by the Unusual Destiny." Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media. 1976.

A film that's exceedingly difficult to pin down. It would be easy to dismiss it, but it's just as easy to be startled and amazed by it. The story's simple enough: a shaggy, dark-skinned man (played by Giancarlo Gianni) works under the thumb of the bourgoisie on a hired yacht. He despises them, and they despise him. One of these rich people is particularly annoying, a blonde woman (Mariangelo Melato), who spends her days incessantly bitching, spouting capitalist slogans, and putting down the servant class. These two characters, not surprisingly, end up together on a dinghy whose motor has broken. She never shuts up, he stares at her murderously. They eventually land on a deserted island, where he refuses to help her whatsoever. She eventually has to submit to whatever abuses he chooses to dish out. Yes, that does include physical and eventually a near-rape, which will certainly disgust and upset a lot of the film's audience. The film can actually be sort of perverse. I'm sure many have marvelled that, with some of the film's crueller scenes, the film was directed by a woman. It is actually, in its way, nearly as perverse at some times as The Night Porter, directed in the very same year in Italy, also by a woman. That film's merits are more dubious than Swept Away's, however. The film is unexpectedly hilarious, at least for the first forty-five minutes or so. When the abuse starts, the film begins to shift to a social issues picture. Class issues are important, as well as racial issues (which kind of amount to the same thing). I didn't mind seeing the woman verbally abused - she spent the first forty-five minutes doing the same to the guy. The smackings she receives were hard for even me to take, however. The politics are nevertheless exceedingly interesting. The film has some very good material on the social constructions of class. After this section of the film, the story shifts to erotica, and it is very erotic at times. In this section, the film is a direct descendent of Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris (as was The Night Porter, incidentally). After that, the film shifts once again to romantic melodrama, as the two are rescued. The man makes the decision to signal a yacht that he sees in the distance simply because he wants to test the deep love that the woman swears by. These shifts in narrative can be clearly felt, like upshifting in a manual transmission vehicle, but it works rather well. I was always right with the film with its emotions (although it took me a good twenty minutes to get into the film). I ended up rather loving it, despite its flaws. Now I actually want to see the Madonna version to see how bad that hack Guy Ritchie screwed it up. At one point in the film the man tells the woman that she looks like the Madonna. Pretty funny, no? 9/10.

I really loved this movie. I have to admit I only saw this because I heard of Madonna's remake and my love for the Goldie Hawn movie "Overboard", but...wow! Interesting, romantic, powerful, hard-to-watch, political, funny, sad, etc. This movie has it all. You can analyze this movie to death, but it will do it a disservice. Quite simply, it's about a bizarre romance that happens when two people who are total opposites, thus hating each other, are stranded on a remote island and must learn how to live together. By today's standards, this is a very un-P.C. movie: Male domination over a woman. However, it IS just a movie, not real life--don't let that put you off; and there are some scenes that are hard to take, but given the context of the characters, you might think to yourself--"is this deserved?" I think some parts are, and others--not at all. You might like this film if you liked Pedro Almodovar's "Atame! (Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down!)". This is a film you'll end up discussing with others after you've seen it. Also, I don't recommend viewing this around children or very impressionable teenagers.

This was one of those few movies that can stay in your mind for decades. I still remember the scene where the rabbit is caught in the trap and slain. This, along with "Seven Beauties", is Wurtmuller's at her best. I have no intention of seeing the Madonna remake.