The Sisters

The Sisters is an Italian film from 1969 with incest themes. I could only find one website that hosted the film; a site dedicated to vintage pornography. With all of these factors at play, I went into the film assuming it would be incredibly sleazy. To my great surprise, it wasn’t! The Sisters is an artistically valid melodrama. Despite the controversial subject matter, the film is not nearly as sleazy or exploitative as you’d expect.

The film follows the reunion of two sisters, Diana and Martha. In the handful of years since they’ve seen each other, Martha has married a rich, older man named Alex. As soon as Diana arrives, she and Martha get incredibly close in a way that’s a bit beyond what’s acceptable between siblings. Alex seems to realize something’s off here. He thinks the solution is to bring his cousin, Dario to stay so Diana has a male to focus on. Diana has no interest in Dario, obviously. Her focus is on Martha. But Martha is only happy to be close to Diana so long as they didn’t speak about their relationship being weird. Whenever Diana tries to bring it up, Martha spurns her. Eventually, Dario and Alex leave for a few days so the sisters can try and work through their complicated relationship, history and feelings for one another.

The film in general is very good drawing drama not just from what’s being said but what’s going unsaid. This is a small drama with only four major players. It’s a really good setup for creating interpersonal drama and tension. While admittedly sometimes the film takes too long setting a tone or establishing a simple concept, they always succeed in doing it. And they’re able to do it without always stating the issue outright. There’s subtly to The Sisters which I really didn’t expect.

Given the set up of beautiful women who engaged in sapphic incest, the film shows surprising restraint in its handling of the subject matter. There’s never any overt scenes of incest. Diana and Martha talk about it more than anything. Even then, they talk in general, vague terms. Likewise, their physical interactions aren’t overt. The incest comes in through small gestures like a kiss on the cheek that goes on too long or a moment of eye contact that’s far too loaded. The Sisters is very good at never making this dynamic blatant and sleazy. Yet the film still makes it overt that these sisters’ relationship goes beyond the pale. It’s a very impressive line the film walks; having a relationship that can be read as nothing other than incestuous yet never actually blatantly showing it.

Still, the story is good but not great. Diana and Martha’s emotionally charged interactions will ping from awkward to angry to erotically charged to childish. Whether or not this abrupt emotional switch works is dependent on the scene. There is definitely some pacing issues in the film. The second act drains away much of the tension of the first act and the third act seems rushed. Some of the things set up are only hinted at and not fully explored. By contrast, some things set up by the film amount to nothing. Ideally, the third act would have been longer. A lot of set-up seemed rushed and the second act could have been shorter or incorporated these set-ups earlier on.

The Sisters really surprised me. I went in expecting bottom of the barrel sleaze when the movie is actually a fairly competent melodrama. It’s admittedly flawed but the film engaged me throughout. The film looks and feels modern. Even without the incest theme, this is one of those European films that would’ve blown away American audiences with how forward-thinking it is compared to American cinema of the time. Honestly, I sort of want to do a remake of this movie. There’s material here for a genuinely valid, potentially awards-bait movie. Margot Robbie and Lily James can play the leads.

Overall rating: 6.9/10

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