As ridiculous as it might seem, I think there is a strong argument for saying that the mid-80s were some sort of golden age for Italian erotic cinema. Seriously. Think about it - with the rest of the country’s exploitation and horror genres in decline, filmmakers were increasingly drawn to the softcore cinema that still had a market, and a bunch of glossy movies came forth, far removed from the sex comedies and sleazy exploitation of the previous decade. Led by Tinto Brass and Joe D’Amato, a whole bunch of films flooded forth, and while many were pretty dull, some managed to transcend their own limitations. The Dark Side of Love is one of those films – a well-crafted, surprisingly erotic story that shamelessly plunges headfirst into sexual taboos – in this case, incest.

Now, it takes a special kind of person to try and mine the field of brother-sister sex for its erotic potential, but Salvatore Samperi steps up and, against the odds, pulls it off – partly through allowing the incestuous elements to be manifested as a combination of forbidden yearnings and sexual manipulation rather than any actual coupling, and partly because the viewer is aware that the two leads are not really related and so is less unwilling to appreciate the erotic frissons of the film.

In fact, this is more a story of dominance and submission – not in a BDSM sense though, but rather the ongoing manipulation that takes place within the power games that Patrizia (Monica Guerritore) and her brother Emilio (Lorenzo Lena) play out. When she returns to the family home to look after her shut-in, socially and wilfully inept brother following the deaths of their parents, the pair quickly develop a love-hate relationship. He resents her attempts to force him into the outside world (and you can’t blame him – she’s self-centered, arrogant and pushy) but also feels an attraction to her – something made obvious by an erection during a platonic cuddle. While Patrizia is shocked by this, the pair start to develop a curious bond, and after an unsatisfying night with an old boyfriend, she comes to tell Emilio an explicit, masturbatory story about a previous sexual encounter. This soon becomes a regular thing, the stories and her telling of them taking on a more and more provocative manner – and it’s here where the film achieves a genuine eroticism, the combination of her stories and the tease having a real punch.

Yet even as this is happening, she tries to fix him up with a sexy model acquaintance who he somehow manages to resist (more fool him, I say), while Emilio provokes her to carry out the sexual acts she is describing in the stories for real with strangers. As the pair battle for control, their own forbidden desires become harder and harder to resist.

You can’t really call a film about a brother-sister relationship ‘tasteful’, but The Dark Side of Love is far from the crass exploitation piece you might expect. By softcore standards, there’s little nudity (and it’s fairly evenly distributed between men and women) and the story is handled more seriously than you might expect. The most explicit moment, in fact, is a brief hardcore shot glimpsed on a TV screen as Emilio watches a porno film. Being a 1980s film, there are of course a couple of heinous songs and fashion photo shoots that are considerably more offensive than anything in the story.

I’m not sure if 1980s Euro erotica has yet found a cult following – though if not, it’s surely only a matter of time. The Dark Side of Love, regardless of the bad taste central idea, is one of the best non-Brass examples of the genre though, for viewers with no sense of shame at least.

DAVID FLINT

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