Blue Rita

Many of Jess Franco’s movies straddle the line between what does and doesn’t count as porn as opposed to cinema. Frankly, Blue Rita has more explicit content than a lot of his movies I’ve seen. Certainly a lot more nudity. But it also has more plot than a lot of his films. To be completely honest though, my decision on counting this as a movie instead of porn and thus, doing a review is simply because I think Blue Rita is funny.

Blue Rita focuses on a burlesque club that’s actually a front for espionage, torture and scientific experiments. Rita and her female cohorts’ primary focus is extraction of information. This involves a lot of seduction as well as “torture”. The torture involves using a potion to make men very horny and then denying them sex. Rita herself hates men and only takes female lovers. However, there is a traitor in Rita’s midst. At least one of her fellow naked spy ladies is double-crossing her.

All the espionage and spy stuff is truly just an excuse for Franco to once again, put his kinks on camera. In this one at least I appreciate how much universe building he did to justify filming jerk-off material. Also, the big focus of Blue Rita is male degradation and female domination. The women are undeniable objectified and none can be called a strong female character. But on the other hand, the dominance angle means they are at least an active part of the narrative and generally hold all the cards in sexual situations.

The tension between the plot of the film and the fact that it’s softcore porn is really, really funny here. The stakes here are pretty major. Rita and her friends are doing pretty major spy stuff. They just do it full-on vulva out the entire film. Seriously, the women are nude pretty much every scene. Doesn’t stop them from invention horny potions or doing espionage, though. Blue Rita is almost camp. It’s only stopped because despite all the lesbianism, it’s still too overtly heterosexual and too damn horny to fully cross that line.

There isn’t as much lesbian content as I was hoping for given Rita’s hatred of men. For a misandrist organization, they spend a lot of time sexually teasing their male captors. The main lesbianism comes from a scene where Rita initiates a new woman. She does this via, a ritualistic kiss, blood sharing, a promise to swear off men and an application of a mysterious potion into the woman’s vagina. So, Franco got something right. I can confirm that’s how I became a lesbian as well. Once Rita’s initiated this woman, they have sex. But the scene is shot through a fish tank. As the woman goes down on Rita, our view of her is blocked by a piece of seaweed. Excellent staging and camerawork there, Jess. The two have sex again later in the film but I think it’s using the same footage from the first go-around.

The most surprising thing about Blue Rita was how hard it went visually. The set designer and cinematographer went absolutely OFF on this film. The sets are really cool to look at! There’s certainly a distinct and intentional aesthetic. One set contains only inflatable, clear furniture. I would love to see the multiple love scenes that occurred in this room without the music to hide all the squeaking. The lighting really ties it all together, though. There’s so much genuinely great hyper-saturated colourful lenses. Different settings have different lighting colours. It all comes together to be a really great-looking base for a movie. Then Jess Franco populates these well-designed, well-lit locations with bad character blocking and shit camerawork. Shame.

Blue Rita ends with all of the women except the heterosexual one dying. So, keep that in mind before you watch this 1970s softcore spy flick. That was a disappointment. Overall though, Blue Rita was pretty fun. I’ve seen a lot of Jess Franco films by now. They’re almost universally bad. Some made me angry, some just made me bored. Blue Rita is bad in a way I found deeply entertaining. I got some laughs out of it. It’s just so, so stupid! Plus, the lighting is really good. Shout out to the DP and associated lighting team for this 1970’s softcore flick. Y’all did some masterful work.

Overall rating: 3.3/10

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