Storyline

It's sometime during WWII. Italian national, Neapolitan Pasqualino Frafuso, is a big talking layabout who has grand ideas of his importance, especially in upholding the honor of his family consisting of his mother and his less than attractive seven sisters. He admits to himself that he too is less than handsome, but believes he nonetheless attracts the romantic interest of most women. It is in he upholding the honor of his sisters that he often calls himself Pasqualino Settebellezze, translated Pasqualino "Seven Beauties". Having gone AWOL from military service, he has just gotten off a train as a stowaway in an unknown locale having just met another AWOL soldier, Francesco, they believing they somewhere in Germany, which is indeed a correct assumption. In relaying his less than direct "point A to point B" story in how he arrived at this point in time to Francesco, Pasqualino tells one in which every conscious decision was what he thought would be the path of greatest ease for himself in less than ideal circumstances, that path which began with accidentally killing his sister Concettina's pimp and, according to her, lover and fiancé, declaring insanity in the ensuing legal battles rather than going to prison, and choosing military service rather than continue to endure medical intervention, such as shock treatment, at the psychiatric hospital. Pasqualino and Francesco are quickly captured by the Nazis and sent to a POW camp. Having already witnessed mass murders by the Nazis both inside and outside the camp, Pasqualino makes another such "easier path" decision in what ends up being a dangerous campaign of seducing the obese and sadistic female camp commandant.—Huggo

Plot Keywords

writer director, male nudity, male frontal nudity, male pubic hair, pubic hair, murder, f rated, deserter, electroshock therapy, torture, title written by female, title directed by female, rape, u.s. soldier, mirror, prostitution, italian soldier, brother sister relationship, firing squad, dismemberment

Short Review

Its virtuoso style, demonstrating once again Miss Wertmuller's mastery of filmmaking, is used to tell us a story that's very opaque, despairing, and bottomless.

Trailer

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