This movie is beautifully shot and exquisitely set, written, and served by the cast : and, just because there's always such a moralistic and disturbing content so typical of the bored Northen Italian upper class of the time ( mid 1970's) so well described and exquisitely, almost realistically, appointed here, that is why I so generously gave it a 7 out of 10 votes! Unlike the previous reviewer (now.. with all my respects, but Oh my God, have I ever, even read such a silly, puritanical , virtually pointless, and untrue review, over a movie that lastly seems to depend from the aberration of nudity and sex, themselves ?! Next time just go for Walt Disney, OK?). Sorry, I think actually this was a very psychological, and extremely erotic elaboration of a possible idea of a in depth research into the bored and yet hopeful love lives of a few wealthy, and constantly conditioned by the moralist of their "stale" time of reflux - just after a decade spent considering, or not , the counter culture - to choose lives so abruptly adverse to their real feelings: and, so sexuality here is key, and the exploitation of it through the unconscious, and the blame of a possible subconscious faith that becomes very much tragic and realistic, when almost as cutting a deep crack into the so hated routine of the frantically demised and shrewdly mannered lead characters, a real death comes with its embarrassing excitement to propose to each one of them, but even to a few, well described supporting roles, almost a motive of escape from the existential boredom they all live as if it were almost a golden cage, instead of a very much bourgeois trap, revealing them as many others had been before and will be made again,a not all so loving, not all so kind, not all so pretty, perfect and possibly aristocrat, group of friends, but if anything a very much more possible, flawed and lustful nest of vipers! And, it's here I believe, where this movie fails, unfortunately, and despite its extremely exquisite presentation, its very much critical and yet simply perfect idea, and the refined, always quite realistic (for the time of course!) description of mores and characters , lost ideologies, and vane passions, primarily all becoming an obsolete abuse, or an outraged act so heavily against themselves, finally, leaving obvious, that is, only what obvious it is,and has been for a long time, and, even to those who have such a hard time coping and dealing with it: decadence! Yes, the main true interest of our beautiful and pragmatically over chic, conservative protagonists is a tragic sense of self rendition, madly accompanied by a lack of self esteem, while only sheer violence and a rather lusted lecherous need to almost abuse themselves and others grows more and more so inevitable and manifesting the tired and uneasy living and hated kept secrets or positions of one another ! But, while this same idea would have shined in the hands of some great director like let's say, Michelangelo Antonioni ( oh God i would have loved to see what Antonioni could have made out of this, and what cast he would have assembled, without in any case wanting to take away from this more B movie cast, which however must be recognized for its almost incredible effectiveness and hard work!) becoming just a meditative parabola over the extremism of the social class and their lengthy decadent fall, in an atmosphere suspended almost among the divine and the unconscious, becoming probably a late 1970's rather sought closure to all of Antonioni's incommunicable'a outstanding dramas filmed in the early 1960's, this film staying rather consistently far away from that route, does not even embrace the genius and way more raw and provocative rebellion and true breaking ground attitude that a Lars Von Trier, 20 years later would take, with it's marvelously cruel and almost pornographic work of Art, in the U.S., of course, heavily censored "The Idiots" in 1999, one of the very best Dogma films ever made! In Eriprando Visconti's almost garnished and way too polished film, every thing stays instead inevitably uneven and on the surface for a true lack of strong inspiration and of intents, and very cautiously trying to scandalize the same classes ( such as our previous reviewer who was clinging on counting on the naked bodies instead of concentrating of what might have made him/her do so! ) of the times with probably the thanks of his producers and International distributors, which again at the time, might have seen in this badly managed if beautifully photographed Spiral, the only reasons of possible financial gains.
