This movie's trailer declares that "the new age of erotica coming in 1997". Unfortunately, the movie itself hasn't become the beginning of a new era of porn. It rather remains a sole achievement, a still unattainable paragon of the genre (however I should mention that I am not familiar with other Philip Mond's endeavors ).
The movie's biggest accomplishment is the way in which it approaches the most critical problem of porn movies - a 'meaning' thing. The total absence of any sense (even on some atmospheric level) which characterizes almost all productions of this genre renders almost immaterial any other 'developments'. The attempts to deal with this problem (some of them were pretty expensive) have one common mistake - they tend to ignore the objective parameters set by the genre (you have only 20 min between 'action' scenes, at most, to tell a 'story'; this 'story' should live through these scenes which last much longer etc.). As a result, in almost all those movies that undertook somewhat ponderous attempts to bring in some 'meaning' through introducing some 'plot', the latter exists separately from everything else. "Conquest" with Jenna Jameson is a good example - the plot does not affect the 'action' scenes in any way - in fact, most of them are worse than those from any average quality production. So what we have is just a silly waste of time and money.
Having, obviously, grasped the same idea - you can successfully handle this problem only by incorporating somehow a 'meaning' into an 'action' - "Zazel", on the contrary, finds a perfect solution. It offers a plot, chaste as it is, but which immaculately pulls this whole thing together. Without any dialog (the only thing that we can hear is a narration) it renders meaningful not only all the 'action' scenes, but each element of them: settings, costumes etc.
Apart from this accomplishment the movie has two indisputable assets: a marvelous soundtrack by Dino and Earl Ninn (it contributes into the general meaning with its every instrumental part as well as with occasional lyrics) and a piece of stunning perfection - the red beauty Anna Romeo. This graciously moving gray-eyed honey has three scenes in the movie (plus one as a body double) and is absolutely dazzling in all possible ways.
All those things compounded give us something that goes far beyond subjects that are commonly considered the pinnacles of the genre - normally gorgeously looking, but, in fact, pretty tedious and senseless Andrew Blake's average fumbling around, for instance. Something that even in strictly cinematic terms (considering the amount of resources used) is way above a good half of conventional Hollywood mainstream. It's the quintessence of the genre - an exquisite visual meditation on pure beauty of pure form. When you are watching it, at times, it feels like the world might make some sense.
The movie's biggest accomplishment is the way in which it approaches the most critical problem of porn movies - a 'meaning' thing. The total absence of any sense (even on some atmospheric level) which characterizes almost all productions of this genre renders almost immaterial any other 'developments'. The attempts to deal with this problem (some of them were pretty expensive) have one common mistake - they tend to ignore the objective parameters set by the genre (you have only 20 min between 'action' scenes, at most, to tell a 'story'; this 'story' should live through these scenes which last much longer etc.). As a result, in almost all those movies that undertook somewhat ponderous attempts to bring in some 'meaning' through introducing some 'plot', the latter exists separately from everything else. "Conquest" with Jenna Jameson is a good example - the plot does not affect the 'action' scenes in any way - in fact, most of them are worse than those from any average quality production. So what we have is just a silly waste of time and money.
Having, obviously, grasped the same idea - you can successfully handle this problem only by incorporating somehow a 'meaning' into an 'action' - "Zazel", on the contrary, finds a perfect solution. It offers a plot, chaste as it is, but which immaculately pulls this whole thing together. Without any dialog (the only thing that we can hear is a narration) it renders meaningful not only all the 'action' scenes, but each element of them: settings, costumes etc.
Apart from this accomplishment the movie has two indisputable assets: a marvelous soundtrack by Dino and Earl Ninn (it contributes into the general meaning with its every instrumental part as well as with occasional lyrics) and a piece of stunning perfection - the red beauty Anna Romeo. This graciously moving gray-eyed honey has three scenes in the movie (plus one as a body double) and is absolutely dazzling in all possible ways.
All those things compounded give us something that goes far beyond subjects that are commonly considered the pinnacles of the genre - normally gorgeously looking, but, in fact, pretty tedious and senseless Andrew Blake's average fumbling around, for instance. Something that even in strictly cinematic terms (considering the amount of resources used) is way above a good half of conventional Hollywood mainstream. It's the quintessence of the genre - an exquisite visual meditation on pure beauty of pure form. When you are watching it, at times, it feels like the world might make some sense.