Kärleksön (1977) Online

This movie illustrates what is wrong with hardcore porn. American Joe Sarno came to Sweden in the late 1960's and made a lot of superior softcore sexually-themed films ("Inga", "The Seduction of Inga", "Young Playthings") and discovered/worked with some very beautiful and genuinely talented young Swedish actresses (Christna Lindberg, Marie LLijedahl, Maria Forsa). By 1977, however, the international film scene had gone hardcore, and even in Sweden the plots, the acting, the visual qualities of these kind of films, and even (or perhaps ESPECIALLY) the attractiveness of the performers declined precipitously.

I don't watch porn like a normal person. For instance, I vastly prefer pre-1980s porn because it's more interesting, even it often isn't very sexy. Still, even in the 70's it was a huge mistake to make porn with a cast that (with one exception)you really DON'T want to see having sex. This movie is about a feral, homeless girl living on an island who spies on a lot of vacationers having sex. She then joins in and encourages them to have more sex with her and with each other (even though I think some of them are related). The end.

This is obviously not much of plot, but that's pretty typical. The dialogue is in Swedish, but that might be for the best. The girl who plays "Lena" is the only person who is remotely attractive. At the beginning she sits in a tree watching the others have sex and masturbating with a hairbrush. I don't WHY she is masturbating (as opposed to running in the other direction clawing her eyes out), but thank god she is because it offers cutaway respite from the other actors having "sex". Then she gets involved in the festivities, but her marginal attractiveness isn't nearly sufficient to balance out all the other performers who are about as sexy as Ron Jeremy (and the guys are pretty damn ugly too). This is not very interesting and it sure ain't very sexy. It's definitely not Sarno's best work.

The no-nothing solitary IMDb review for this overlooked classic impelled me to write a rebuttal, even though I don't speak Swedish. Available on DVD from Max's, LOVE'S ISLAND is Joe Sarno's companion film to his acknowledged classic "Fäbodjäntan".

What Joe did is analogous to Pasolini's innovative and equally misunderstood casting (and directorial) approach to his final erotic films beginning with DECAMERON. Pier Paolo took the onus off his career turn into erotica by casting mainly real people rather than actors, and having them "act" awkwardly, a carefully orchestrated form of fake-naturalism. An even further afield analogy would be John Cassavetes' famed seeming-improvisation, carefully developed over the course of rehearsals and run-throughs to appear spontaneous.

Sarno eschews here the star system that dominates his porno films and videos, opting for people who don't resemble actors. Exception, of course, is the star-making turn by Leena, a slim, blonde beauty who is revered to this day among Swedish fans for the pair of Sarno performances. (Her discovery is analogous to a decade earlier Leena (Skoog) a buxom blonde beauty who, alas, was wasted in stupid British films and was best preserved in endless magazine layouts and short loops).

Leena stars as Katrin, a literal force of nature, who seemingly lives up in the trees on this remote little island. Though the film is not a fantasy, not even as much as "Fäbodjäntan" and its magical horn, she seems to be a wood sprite or other legendary creature.

As with so many Sarno efforts, incest plays a central role. The son and his girl are visiting the island, staying with Mama and his sister Britt. What ensues is mix and match sex scenes amongst all of them and Katrin, plus a couple other guys (uncredited) portraying a young stud and a neighboring farmer.

As he did skilfully in KARLA, Sarno telegraphs subtly the ending of the film in the very first shot, a flash-forward to the final sequence of leave-taking. Mama goes off with the neighbor man, and brother Erik leaves after his idyll with his girl friend, leaving Britt and Katrin to live in the house.

Katrin spends much of her time masturbating and peeping in through a broken board to watch folks humping indoors. A telling early scene shows where Sarno is coming from, as she greets Eric & girl friend by squatting in front of them and treating the landscape to a Golden Shower. In context, it is far from shocking in an Annie Sprinkle porn sense, but merely showing how natural body functions, most notably having sex, are.

The awkward non-performances by the cast and the casting of buxom but ugly women (and generally unappealing men, too) surrounding sumptuous Leena is clearly a turn-off to some, but exactly what Sarno was shooting for. Sure, having a knockout like Leena is something of a contradiction, yet her freshness (even 35 years later) and unselfconsciousness win the day.

Cinematography develops the beauty of nature without overdoing it, credited to "Eric Gustafsson", apparently a pseudonym for Torbjörn Lindqvist, who shot other films for Sarno. Musical score is disarming recorder, flute and accordion themes establishing a folksy mood.

"Fäbodjäntan" is a both funny and erotic movie. This, however, is nothing but a very poorly made dogma-esque porn film. Leena is as cute as ever, but all the other women are ugly, old and very off-turning. The men are all dorks or big moosey guys. The film is poorly lit(if at all), badly dubbed, shot with shaky hand-camera and horribly edited. Only reason to see this trash is the gotlandic "actor" (who is also in "Fäbodjäntan) and here his long wailing as he comes, and some of the love scenes with Leena are really erotic and a huge turn-on. All others, stay away!

(Note the tough prison-tattoos on one of the other male "actors")