EarDelightBase Waste of Money.

FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Yazmin Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

daneldorado Having read all the user comments regarding "La Matriarca" (1968), I am dumbfounded that none of the readers -- NOT ONE -- cared to mention what I consider its KEY SCENE. There have been six (6) user comments for this film before mine, and all of them discuss the sexual kinks in it; certainly there are plenty of those. But nobody seems to want to talk about the cathartic scene, where Jean Louis Trintignant puts Mimi (Catherine Spaak) over his knee and spanks her as if she were a naughty little girl.That spanking is purgative for Mimi. It releases her from her sexual inhibitions and her desire to dominate men as she feels she was dominated by her late husband. She and Dr. DeMarchi (Trintignant) realize their love for each other, and they marry. Her sexual adventurism is a thing of the past, as they settle down together.But all of the user comments were written in the 21st century, and were no doubt influenced by the prevailing feminist moral code. It is now considered ungentlemanly to spank a grown woman, in spite of the fact that for hundreds of years before the current era, spankings were common and generally accepted by the public. A large number of mainstream films attest to that sensibility.At any rate, "La Matriarca" (known in the U.S. as "The Libertine") gives us a delicious show of what happens when a young and beautiful woman becomes a widow and then discovers that her late husband had kept a love nest where he spent time with other women and unleashed his sadistic instincts.The home movies she finds in that apartment -- where all the walls and ceilings are made of mirrors -- show women being whipped, punched, beaten, and subjected to numerous unimaginable humiliations. NONE of those humiliations, however, include spanking. That would be too tame.But not too tame for Dr. DeMarchi, as he realizes that Mimi -- whom he has grown to love -- needs to be purged of the bitterness that is poisoning her life. He proposes marriage to Mimi, but she doesn't say yes and she doesn't say no; to help her make up her mind, he puts her over his knee and spanks her. As I said at the outset, that is the key scene of this film. It should not be ignored in future reviews.By the way: To disabuse you of any thoughts that I might be wrong about considering the spanking as "the key scene," consider buying the DVD. And notice the still that appears repeatedly, every time you try to change the disc features. Yep, it shows Mimi getting spanked. Apparently the disc producers consider that the "key scene" too.Dan Navarro (daneldorado93@yahoo.com)

bblorf Lord, this sucked. There's a particular sort of sexual revolution flick from the 60s that manages to confuse sexual assault with sexual liberation. This film is an example. I lost track of how many times women are slapped, hit, whipped, or spanked in the film. And then there are all the times that women in the film fantasize about being slapped, hit, whipped or spanked (you know they want it, right?). Sometimes it is ostensibly part of safe fetish play-acting. Other times it plainly isn't, but you will wait in vain to see the heroine report to authorities that she has just been raped. Instead we get to hear her being lectured by her rapist about her inability to "let go".Every scene of this film reeks of misogyny (speaking as a straight, white, married man in his late 30's, not a teenage lesbian women's studies major with a chip on her shoulder, lest you get the wrong idea).Perhaps the one good thing about this film is that it provides a stark reminder of just how bad things really were for women only a few short decades ago.

lazarillo A pampered young widow (Catherine Spaak) discovers that her deceased husband was a pervert after finding his secret penthouse and stash of stag films (which strangely seem to be professionally shot and edited). She decides to get post-humous revenge on him by embarking on a series of perverse sexual escapades of her own. She buys a copy of Freud's "Psychpathis Sexualis" (I don't know why she doesn't start with "The Joy of Sex" or something and work her way up) and experiments with an number of strange, but relatively harmless, perversions before finding true love with her chiropractor (Jean Sorel).Some may find this movie pretty slow and lacking in both sex and nudity. It has some really ridiculous dialogue (or rather monologue--as the lead seems to constantly talk to herself in voice-over or out loud). It seems pretty innocent by today's standards, but it also has startlingly cavalier attitude toward sexual promiscuity. And some of the passages the heroine reads in voice-over from her book (such as the account of a sexual sadist who bites off his partner's nose during sex) are quite jarring compared to the silly and much more wholesome things she actually does. Still I liked this film for it's odd combination of sex and the 60's-era nostalgia you feel watching it today. Catherine Spaak is unbelievably cute and naturally sexy in a way that woman just aren't anymore in the modern world of breast implants and 24-hour-a-day fitness centers. The final image of her nearly naked and in sexual ecstasy as she (literally) rides her boyfriend around the penthouse apartment is very memorable.Pasquale Campanile was also a pretty damn good director who years later would helm the memorable giallo "Hitchhike". He and his fellow countryman Massimo "Venus in Furs" Dallamano actually might have done "Eurotica" better than more famous European directors like Jesus Franco, Jean Rollins, and Jose Larraz, but they are much less internationally renowned today, probably because their work never crossed into the horror and fantasy genres. It's very worthy stuff, nevertheless--seek it out.

ishop247 Very cute and erotic movie made in 1969! ;-) I found it on Netflix and was intrigued. The movie has all the stylish glamour of the 60s with lots of sex!Young widow uses dead husband's bachelor apt for sexual exploration. She sleeps around and ends up falling in love.Lots of a nakedness and laughs! I'd recommend it!