Capital Celluloid 2016 - Day 301: Fri Oct 28

Fuego (Bo, 1969): Barbican Cinema, 8.45pm


This event is part of the Barbican's Cheap Thrills: Trash, Movies and the Art of Transgression season. Full details here.

Barbican introduction:
There’s plenty of heat and heart in this charming Argentine tale of love, lust and copious nudity.

Laura (Isabel Sarli) needs men – and women – because she’s a nymphomaniac. Spotted on the beach from afar by a wealthy industrialist, the immediately enamoured Carlos (Armando Bo), Laura decides he is the only man she loves – but he’s not the only person who can satisfy her. The tension between Laura's needs and her emotions make for an inevitably tragic ending.

Sarli is Argentina’s own Sophia Loren and her appeal is extraordinary; her wardrobe of fur coats, plunging necklines and her birthday suit shows that she’s a woman fully conscious of her own power.

It’s this confidence from Sarli, combined with the Catholic moral dilemmas of the late 1960s that makes for such a potent mix. The melodrama might well make us giggle, but that core tension – between what women want and how they should be – is still worth exploring.


Here (and above) is the opening of the film.

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