BLUE MOVIE (1971) Blu-ray/DVD Combo
Director: Wim Verstappen
Cult Epics

Cult Epics exposes "Holland today" with the Dutch Sex Wave favorite BLUE MOVIE on Blu-ray/DVD combo.

Twenty-five-year-old Michael (Hugo Metsers, SPETTERS) is released from prison after five years for a "social offense" (bedding a fifteen-year-old girl) into a Holland where the sexual revolution is in full bloom. He is informed by his social worker Eddie (Helmert Woudenberg, AMSTERDAMNED) both that times and attitudes have changed but that his freedom has limits. Eddie has found Michael a place to live in a new sprawling apartment development outside the city and, in addition to the parole board's requirements that he find employment, Eddie has recommended that Michael find a nice girl from a good family and settle down lest his rehabilitation be derailed by temptation; indeed, Eddie has determined that there are three available girls in the entire complex. Eddie tries to discourage Michael's interest in married Elly (Carry Tefsen, DIARY OF A HOOKER) in favor of single mother Julia (Ine Veen, FIST OF FURY IN CHINA). In spite of his attraction to Julia, Michael feels that she has enough trouble without him. Eddie inadvertently pushes Michael to associate with zoologist Professor Bernard Cohn (Kees Brusse, MYSTERIES) who has just returned from Africa, but he finds the professor's younger German wife Marianne (Ursula Blauth, THE NAKED COUNTESS) and the feeling is mutual. Rather than searching for work, Michael finds his days preoccupied not only by Elly and Marianne, but also by other housewives who need a bit of muscle until he decides that sex is his business.

One of the films that kicked off Holland's "Dutch Sex Wave" along with Paul Verhoeven's TURKISH DELIGHT and producer Pim de la Parra's FRANK & EVA (also starring Metsers and a pre-EMMANUELLE Sylvia Kristel), BLUE MOVIE attained notoriety for a shot of Metsers' erection more so than various background displays of nudity and hardcore imagery, but it is the film's social commentary that keeps compelling a shapeless and episodic story. While Eddie tells Michael that people think differently now, he also warns that even a social infraction such as sleeping with a married woman could have an effect on his parole. Michael walks into a bookshop and is surprised to see not only pornographic magazines of all varieties openly displayed but women consuming them (with one woman seen specifying the type of S&M she is looking for). He thinks to purchase condoms when Elly asks him to drop by that night but is entirely ignorant of the pill. Professor Cohn likens the apartment complex to a zoo, nothing that monkeys can show restraint in the wild but become sex maniacs in captivity; and, indeed, the film can come across as a less fantastic version of David Cronenberg's SHIVERS, particularly in terms of the climactic party in which he screens a blue movie for fellow tenants of all ages and persuasions – Michael himself reveals that his sentence got extended because of a fight with an inmate who wanted to go to bed with him yet he seems accepting of threesomes with third parties of either sex as when bisexual Anne's (Monique Smal) husband discovers them in bed and simply apologizes for being late before embracing them both – with only the impotent and easily scandalized turned away. "This is Holland today," Michael tells Eddie whose advice and guidance now seems intended to restrict Michael to the a narrowly-focused version of the world with which Michael is comfortable. The ambiguous ending includes the suicide of a person made to feel excluded as Michael once was, and Michael questioning whether he can reconcile sexual desire and love. The film was photographed by future Paul Verhoeven DP of choice and future blockbuster bomb director Jan de Bont (BASIC INSTINCT) while the titular film-within-a-film is barely glimpsed in the background of the party scene but was directed by producer de la Parra and shot by Theo van de Sande (MIRACLE MILE). The film was a German co-production through Dieter Geissler (THE NEVERENDING STORY) – star of de la Parra's Hitchcockian Martin Scorcese-scripted OBSESSIONS – where it was known as DAS PORNO-HAUS VON AMSTERDAM. Director Wim Versteppen continued to direct in various genres through to the eighties, but his only widely distributed film stateside was the Rutger Hauer thriller FATAL ERROR.

Although successful in several territories – including Japan where it was optically censored – BLUE MOVIE was apparently not released stateside, although the lack of an English dub was probably the reason. Cult Epic's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.37:1 pillarboxed fullscreen Blu-ray is derived from an HD restoration carried out by the EYE Film Institute. Since the film was shot on 16mm reversal film, the film can only look so good in high definition with the scan of the 35mm duplicate negative looking quite grainy and boasting uneven shadows (with a grade to achieve consistent total blacks likely to obscure available detail in the low lit interiors and night exteriors). One fault of the restoration, however, is that every reel change has a frame or two of black leader at the head or tail. The back cover cites Dolby Digital 2.0 mono audio but that is only true of the DVD side of the combo with the Blu-ray boasting a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track with clear Dutch and German dialogue and the scoring of Jürgen Drews (SHORT NIGHT OF THE GLASS DOLLS) mixed to be understated rather than being a fault of the mix. Optional English subtitles are free of errors.

Extras start off with a 1971 interview with director Verstappen (11:25) boasting the most bizarre hairstyle, in which he discusses the film's run-in with the Dutch film inspectors and how the censorship system in Holland seems designed to pass such films from other countries while restricting the expression of Dutch filmmakers. He also discusses the film's funding, noting that the German co-producers took advantage of the tax haven of Liechtenstein while also expressing his own skepticism and frustration about the accuracy of reports about the film's profits from its international distribution. Producer de la Parra appears in an introduction and interview from 2018 at the Cinémathèque Française "Dutch Sex Wave" series (17:18) in which he recalls that Verstappen modeled the film on American sexploitation films he had seen on a visit to New York and that he designed with the goal of abolishing the Dutch film inspectors. He also comments on the notoriety of the film's exposure of Metser's "crazy Henkie" which he claims Verstappen told de Bont not to film but he did anyway. Metsers' son Hugo Metsers Jr. appears in a 2018 interview (9:42) recalling the feeling of freedom growing up in the seventies with his parents focused on their work but now feeling a bit lonely in retrospect. He accidentally saw the film at age ten when he and his friends stumbled upon it while looking for sexual content on pirate TV stations and was embarrassed ("My erection went down immediately"). He finally forced himself to watch the film ten years later and finds the sex unarousing and the plot a little "stupid" but appreciates the social and philosophical aspects. Of his father, he reveals that FRANK & EVA was truer to life than intended with his father stoned and screwing nightly during production, and that he left film at the peak of his career and went back to the stage. He also reveals that these days his father dislikes attention from his film work and does not talk about it. Also included is a featurette on the Eye Film Institute (7:01) and its preservation efforts for Dutch film as well as a poster and photo gallery (3:08). The film's theatrical trailer (1:50) is included along with trailers for de la Parra's OBSESSIONS, FRANK & EVA, and MY NIGHTS WITH SUSAN, SANDRA, OLGA & JULIE (which seems in the thriller mold of OBSESSIONS but more sexually explicit). A limited edition of 500 copies available directly from Cult Epics includes a slipcover with German poster art and a reversible cover with uncensored poster art. The slipcase version can also be purchased in a bundle with the slipcase version of FRANK & EVA. (Eric Cotenas)

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