This is Rashomon done as a sex comedy. A man named Gianni encounters a young woman named Tina. She is walking her dog in the park. He asks her out. By the end of the evening he has scratches on his face and her dress is all torn. But what really happened?
We get four different accounts, and they are wildly in conflict.
According to Tina’s account Gianni tried to force himself on her and she faced a wild struggle to preserve her virtue.
According to Gianni’s account Tina seduced him and was so insatiable that he was left a physical wreck.
According to the doorman (a part-time Peeping Tom) the evening was an orgy of sexual deviance with a whole cast of participants.
The psychiatrist’s account is different again.
Not one of these accounts is convincing. Which is as it should be. It is possible, indeed likely, that we are dealing with multiple unreliable narrators all of whom have good reason to be dishonest in their recounting of the events. Which means that the whole movie has a slightly off-kilter feel, which is certainly deliberate. The viewer is supposed to remain always aware that these accounts are not documentary proof but merely stories told by various people. I think it gives the movie an interesting feel.
It is of course a movie about story-telling. There are some things we know because we were active participants or eyewitnesses but in most cases we have to rely on stories that we are told. That’s true of life. It’s also true of documentary accounts (and documentary films) which purport to be objective and impartial. It’s true of the TV news and it’s true of the evidence presented in courts of law.
And in none of these cases can we be sure that we know the actual facts. This movie explores these ideas reasonably well. The trick of course is how to wrap up a story like this. It’s a puzzle, but once you have the answer to the puzzle it’s no longer interesting. Four Times That Night manages fairly to resolve that problem fairly well.
Given Bava’s obsession with visuals it’s tempting to assume that this movie is about the unreliability of what we see, or what we think we see. Some critics have been tempted to interpret the movie this way.
I think that’s a total misunderstanding of this movie. The four narrators are not misinterpreting what they see. They are deliberately lying to us, or rather they are starting with a core of truth and then surrounding it with a tissue of lies to serve their own ends. This is not a movie about the unreliability of visual evidence. This is a movie about the unreliability and deceptiveness of narratives. We cannot trust what people tell us. The movie it most reminds me of is Edgar G. Ulmer’s Detour.
Mario Bava was incapable of making a dull-looking movie and Four Times That Night generally looks very stylish with some nice visual set-pieces. There’s also a very cool Swinging 60s vibe, and a fair helping of late 60s decadence among the rich and fashionable.
This is a sex comedy so the obvious first question is - it it funny? The answer is yes. It’s amusing and witty and the humour has a slightly oddball flavour to it. This is sophisticated European comedy so don’t expect slapstick (although there is some visual humour).
The obvious second question is - is it sexy? I think it is, but in a low-key fairly tame sort of way. There’s not much nudity, just a few topless scenes. Not being able to rely on nudity Bava concentrates on sexy shots of girls in very short dresses. I must confess that I find this quite appealing. It’s old-fashioned sexiness which relies on teasing rather than revealing.
This movie doesn’t have a high reputation even among Bava fans. That’s a bit unfair. It encountered some unfortunate production and distribution problems. It’s biggest problem was timing. It was made in 1968. In 1968 it would have been fairly hot stuff and fairly daring and might well have done extremely well. Sadly it was not released until late 1971. Things were moving quickly at that time. Movies were becoming more sexually daring almost by the month. By 1971 Four Times That Night seemed a bit too tame.
The visuals are pure Bava and they’re stunning. Bava captures the late 60s feel exceptionally well. This is thematically a fairly ambitious movie and I think it succeeds to a much greater degree than its reputation would suggest. This is Bava attempting a genre he’d never attempted before but Bava wasn’t afraid to do that. I think it’s a worthy entry in Bava’s filmography and I’m going to highly recommend it.
The Kino Classics DVD (they’ve released it as a Blu-Ray as well) offers a really lovely transfer. There’s an audio commentary by Tim Lucas. I usually love Lucas’s commentaries but I have to say that I think he badly misunderstands this movie. He also reveals major spoilers for just about every movie Bava ever made.
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