Above: Making love by proxy in CAT O' NINE TAILS
Holding its own against the grisliest and most eye-catching of Argento’s graphic on-screen murders, CAT O' NINE TAILS (1971) also showcases a stunningly artificial sex scene which ranks among the most subversive and blackly comic depictions of human passion in cinema history. Seemingly influenced by meticulously staged magazine advertisement photography, the below stills do justice to the uncannily frozen quality of pristine shallowness that overlays the interaction…I don’t think I’ve ever seen hairstyles do so much acting before or since. In 'The Future' (i.e., any present whose technological developments are at the turning-point of decadently outpacing their usefulness to the very culture that created them), this is what all sex will be like...
Read the rest here.
