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Released by: Cult Epics
Released on: September 13th, 2016.
Director: Nico B.
Cast: Angelita Franco, Caroline Pierce, Dahlia Dark
Year: 2016
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The Movie:
Director Nico B.'s experimental short film SIN is an interesting nod to vintage adult pictures and early surrealistic filmmaking shot with a fantastic eye for composition and a penchant for pushing the envelope a little bit. More than just a series of old timey nude vignettes, Sin is comprised of three very different episodes, each seemingly set between 1920 and 1940.
The first episode, entitled Lady Of The East, takes place in the Middle East. We start off with an opening scene where a girl runs from a group of men. A panther watches, possibly Bastet, the God Of Pleasure introduced to us in an opening intertitle. From there, a belly dancer (Angelita Franco) struts her stuff on a small stage in a dimly lit watering hole. A man, impressed with her beauty, buys off the owner and takes the woman back home with him to America where, as you'd expect, money changes things and now always for the better.
Le Modele, the second episode, we meet two women played by Caroline Pierce. One of the women is a nun, who takes communion and then sees a white cat cross her path. The other woman eats some simple bread, and then sees a black cat cross her path. From there, things intensify both symbolically and literally as our nun disrobes and uses a crucifix to masturbate, while at the same time, through some well edited dual imagery we learn what fate has in store for both characters.
Last but not least, The Maid follows the exploits of an absolutely stunning curvaceous beauty (Dahlia Dark) who is employed as a maid in servitude to legless aristocrat man (Mark Lee). She struts about his abode in a French Maid's outfit and cleans the place up, just as you'd expect, until he kisses her feet and then proceeds to use her as fodder for his voyeuristic tendencies.
The film takes things into some decidedly dark territory in how it blends base desire with some fairly explicit sexual behavior and mankind's tendency to do evil, but never to the point where this crosses over into what most would consider pornographic territory. It's challenging, yes, the imagery is certainly intended to provoke, but there's more to this than just naked nuns playing with phallic religious symbols in admittedly arousing ways. Shot in the style of a silent film on 8mm stock, it has a retro feel to be sure, what with the intertitles and instrumental score replacing dialogue and sound effects. This isn't overdone, however, it actually works quite well. Nico B.'s clearly got an eye for the details here as the backdrops and costumes are all in keeping with the time period where these three shorts are set. The very title of the film itself gives you a good idea of what you're in for - as it all plays out, we see the different characters in the movie do just that, they sin - but we're along for the ride. Are we complacent, or maybe even participants here? Absolutely, but no one is here to judge you.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Cult Epics presents Sin in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition presentation framed at 1.33.1 in a transfer taken from a scan of the original 8mm elements. The black and white image looks quite nice, showing very good contrast and strong detail throughout. Black levels are strong and deep but free of crush. The film's short running time means that the 25GB disc has plenty of room and as such, there are no compression artifacts to note. The picture is clean, grainy but clean, and free of any print damage problems.
The audio chores are handled by a Dolby Digital 2.0 track. Claude Debussy's soundtrack sounds really nice, and while obviously a lossless option would have been ideal here, even if that didn't happen the track is clean, clear and nicely balanced.
Moving on to the bonus features we get some great Nude Color Outtakes, presented in HD and running just over five minutes in length. This is basically just Dahlia Dark writhing around in bed and shaving her legs, but no one is going to complain about more footage of Dahlia Dark, even if it is presented silently.
Also on hands are some Bonus: Super 8 short films by Nico B, also presented in HD:
Slime, 1990: A student film running five and a half minutes, this shows off aquarium footage juxtaposed with footage of a nude woman, some ultrasound clips, some graphic birth footage and then footage of a child eating, followed by that child plying with a frog and then various reptiles and a skull. It's bizarre.
Tarzan Acapulco, 2000: This is a travel film that runs just under four minutes and shows off various sites from the Flamingo Hotel such as the entry way, photos on the wall, the pool, the coastline and some of the rooms and then a cliff diver.
Chelsea Hotel, 2002: Another travel film, this piece runs just under a minute. It starts off with a blurry face then shows a woman in a black dress roaming a hallway, cutting back and forth between this and some close up shots of people and paintings.
Chelsea Hotel II, 2002: Another travel film, this one minute and twenty second piece follows the same woman (?) through the instantly recognizable stairway of the titular hotel before showing her off in some old fashioned lingerie sitting by a window and then showing off more paintings.
Ville Jean Cocteau, 2003: Travels for three and a half minutes to a European coastal town where we see boats and interesting examples of architecture along the scenic shoreline. From there we visit a museum dedicated to Cocteau.
The Painter, 2015: This most recent short runs just over two minutes and shows us a beautiful woman picking fruit before then capturing her indoors painting a landscape wherein a naked woman stands. A double exposure shows the painter walking about a landscape that is similar to the one she is painting.
Three teasers for Sin are included here, as are static menus and chapter selection for the feature.
Included inside the cardboard slipcover inside the Blu-ray case is a DVD version of the movie with identical extra features. Also housed inside is a full color booklet that contains a large selection of original storyboard drawings illustrated by Brian M. Viveros from 2005.
The Final Word:
Cult Epics presents Nico B.'s Sin, a challenging and artistically impressive work of sexed up surrealism, in very nice shape on this Blu-ray debut. Add to that some choice extras and a nice insert booklet and it's easy to recommend this to those who can appreciate a hefty injection of arthouse sensibilities with their sex films.
Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
