When I was a teenager, I was in love with Ornella Muti. I've already seen her in "The Most Beautiful Wife" (1970), "Romanzo Popolare" (1974), "Leonor" (1975), "Death of a Corrupt Man" (1977), "Viva Italia! (1977), "Atrocious Tales of Love and Death"(1979) and "The Taming of the Scoundrel"(1980). In 1979, I've met in Bucharest a girl that looked exactly like her, even more beautiful, with whom I had a relationship but, that's another story. She, Ornella, is the best thing in this movie. And then, even though she appears very little on the screen, but just as good, it's Katya Berger, as the girl on the beach. Very good is the "old acquaintance" (from movies like "Fat City", "Zandy's Bride", "Another Man, Another Chance") Susan Tyrrell, as crazy Vera. Very good Tanya Lopert too, in the role of ex-wife. Ben Gazzara, I never liked him, though I admit, he is a good, natural actor. Here he does the best role of all the movies I've seen with him. Marco Ferreri was a very very special film director. Very close, in many ways, to Fellini. Apart from the fact that they were both Italians, both of them with similar names, lived in the same period, both were concerned about the same themes, obsessed with what THE WOMAN means for the sensible, usually, intellectual man. Like Charles Bukowski, a poet, writer, soul, that I feel very close to me. The character of Gazzara, the drunk, sex obsessed and witty writer Charles Serking, is Bukowski himself.

Spectacularly sleazy, beautiful, boisterous and sexy, this is the real Bukowski deal, a booze-fueled erotic odyssey by the adventurous Ferreri with the perfectly cast Ben Gazzara as Charles Serking (Bukowski).Ornella Muti, as Serking's sexual muse, is Venus incarnate and turns in a powerhouse performance as Cass, an emotionally damaged whore with a penchant for pain. The scenes of Gazzara swaggering in and out of LA's fleapit bars, apartments and hotel rooms convey a filthy, delirious ambiance that is vividly captured by Tonino Delli Colli's superb cinematography and Dante Ferretti's exquisitely oily production design. This is such an amazing looking film with a thick, steamy, anything-goes atmosphere of lust-ridden anarchy.Much grittier than the accomplished "Barfly" and more watchable than "Love Is A Dog From Hell", the entire affair has an emotional, raw resonance that slavishly captures the Bukowski sensibility and remains consistently perverse in its singular vision of a man enslaved by alcoholic and sexual gluttony.Phillipe Sarde's score is moody and rich, as is Gazzara's breathy voice-over.A masterpiece.

While some of the sex scenes here have an undeniable raw force, calling this "a good movie" would be going too far indeed. It's stagnant in its pacing, and the female characters are conceived in a way that has no bearing on reality whatsoever. By the way, Ornella Muti is beautiful but her "performance" is very poor. (*1/2)

Yes, this would never be a blockbuster... yes, it is weird, depressive and sad... Ornella Muti IS (as one of Bukowski's best known texts) the most beautiful girl in the world! And if you liked Titanic or Pretty Woman you'll probably hate it. But if you wanna try to have an open mind and realize that life is NOT beautiful, you should try and take a look.