Cafe Flesh 2 [1997]

Antonio Passolini's epic-length [132 minutes!] 1997 sequel to the 1982 hardcore porno / s-f cult item Cafe Flesh retains some of the original's satirical frills [a character is named 'Lionel Mandrake', after the Group Captain in Dr Strangelove] but delivers conventionally-arousing [if bizarre] sex rather than the challenging, potentially anerotic charades 'Rinse Dream' [Stephen Sayadian] orchestrated first time around. Some years after a plague has reduced even further the numbers of 'sex positives' in a post-holocaust future, entrepreneuse Violet Chinchilla [Jeanna Fine] dreams of reopening the fabled Cafe Flesh. Among the performers she recruits are Buffy [Stacy Valentine], a defrosted 1970s airhead with a Farrah 'do, and Mookie [Raylene], a waif of the wasteland who does a kinky matador act. Max, the original MC, is around as a brain in a tank, and various intrigues involve secondary characters who only have brief non-sex blackout scenes to get on with the plot before the next 'number' takes centre screen.

Passolini, producer-writer of Michael Ninn's Latex and Shock, carries over from those s-f pornos a fascination with odd jumbles of period [a 'turn' set in a 1961 bachelor pad, a '70s fantasy complete with alien abduction] and industrial-strength fetish gear [Fine inherits a Latex ponygirl outfit for her machine shop shagged-by-a-welder fantasy]. It has inventive use of music, some smart lines and performances that verge on professional standard - though its length, combined with a tendency to repetition, means it still doesn't feel like a proper movie. With Rebecca Lord [as 'French Whore'], Mustang Sally Layd, Vince Voyeur, Kitten Natividad [in a non-sex role] and Veronica Hart.

First published in this form here.

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