The Lickerish Quartet
Radley Metzger reached the pinnacle of his career with this delirious erotic fantasy-cum-beguiling art film. A bored, bickering aristocratic family  on the prowl for thrills spies a woman (Silvana Venturelli, a Jenny McCarthy lookalike with an air of mystery) who looks exactly like the lead in the stag film they just viewed. Inviting the comely young blonde to their elegant seaside mansion, the family finds the mystery woman reaching into their  psyches, unlocking each character's fantasy, and fulfilling their desires in a succession of seductive romps. The line between fantasy and reality blurs as Metzger transforms rooms into striking expressionist sets--a library, for example, turns into a living dictionary of sexual slang--and the story into a heady hall of mirrors as memories and fantasies merge and collide with the present, coming out on the other side in a brilliant, mind-bending conclusion. What emerges more resembles Alain Resnais thanEmmanuelle, a game of illusionist hide-and-seek in a sensual landscape. Hans Jura's cinematography is never less than gorgeous: handsomely composed, lush with rich color, and--as  always--more suggestive than explicit. Metzger's masterpiece is the most seductive art film ever made: ripe, tastefully stylish, and playful smart.--Sean Axmaker