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Radley Metzger is rec­og­nized as a direc­tor of erot­ica but there’s more to his work than just an explo­ration of sex.  His approach to erot­ica has a roman­tic side that dove­tails with the ele­gance and deca­dence that runs through his work.  Perhaps the best exam­ple of this roman­tic side of Camille 2000, an update of the Alexandre Dumas story “Our Lady Of The Camellias.”  Beneath this psy­che­delic style and car­nal affec­ta­tions, this film as swoon­ingly roman­tic as any vin­tage Hollywood melo­drama you care to mention.

The focus here is the romance between a pair of jet-set oppo­sites.  Armand (Nino Castronuovo) comes to spend a sum­mer in Rome under the aus­pices of his wealthy busi­ness­man father (Massimo Serrato).  When his father isn’t avail­able to join him, Armand drifts into Rome’s deca­dent nightlife and becomes smit­ten with Marguerite (Daniele Gaubert), a full-time party girl who is known as “Camille” for her love of camel­lias.  Marguerite is an emo­tion­ally guarded due to a tragic past but Armand’s deter­mi­na­tion wins her over.  However, exter­nal forces intrude upon their love affair, shift­ing the film’s tone from romance to tear­jerker as it hur­tles towards a tragic finale.

Camille 2000 lives up to Metzger’s rep­u­ta­tion as a mas­ter­ful pur­veyor of the erotic.  The sex scenes arrive at strate­gic points in the sto­ry­line and each is a fully con­cep­tu­al­ized audio­vi­sual treat: whether it is a pas­sion­ate cou­pling in a mirror-lined art-deco bed­room or a fetish party where lovers lead each other around by chains,  each is beau­ti­fully styl­ized.  Metzger chore­o­graphs each sex­ual tableau with great care, always atten­tive to match­ing the rhythms of the imagery fit the emo­tional rhythms of a scene.

It helps that Metzger had a top-flight Italian crew at his dis­posal on this film. Cinematographer Ennio Guarnieri would go on to work with direc­tors like Vittoria De Sica and Lina Wertmuller and his pho­tog­ra­phy here offers a series of lush, painterly images, always beau­ti­fully orches­trated in their color and fram­ing. and Piero Piccioni’s score blends lush orches­tra­tions and tight lounge-jazz grooves in a way that per­fect cap­tures the film’s swinging-1960’s mood.

That said, Metzger never for­gets that the story’s car­nal chore­og­ra­phy is an exten­sion of a roman­tic sto­ry­line — and cor­re­spond­ingly he gives that ele­ment of the film promi­nence.  Michael DeForrest’s script takes its time to flesh out the char­ac­ters and gives them tart, intel­li­gent dia­logue that effec­tively con­veys their priv­i­leged yet jaded world.  Correspondingly, the direc­tor gives his work room to breathe, going for a lan­guid pace that mir­rors the intox­i­cated mood of its characters.

Metzger also gets strong per­for­mances from cast: Castelnuovo is charm­ing as the film’s naïve hero and he gets strong sup­port from Serrato as the manip­u­la­tive father and also Roberto DiSacco as Gastion, a friend who’s never at a loss for a cut­ting quip.  Fans of The Lickerish Quartet will also want to note an early appear­ance from Silvana Venturelli: she steals a major party sequence here with her seduc­tive abil­i­ties. That said, the film belongs to Gaubert, who off­sets her ethe­real beauty with a wounded cyn­i­cism that can’t con­ceal a bro­ken heart.  She doesn’t rely on her looks to do the act­ing for her and works hard to bring out the nuances of the mate­r­ial, a com­pli­ment that can be extended to the rest of the cast.

In short, Camille 2000 is an appeal­ing mar­riage of chic late 1960’s style — not to men­tion that era’s free­wheel­ing atti­tudes about sex­u­al­ity — and old-fashioned love story.  It might be Metzger’s most roman­tic film — and you don’t have to be fan of erot­ica to enjoy its sleek pleasures.