Papaya: Love Goddess of the Cannibals (1978)

The Film

From the pen of writer Roberto Gandus (Frozen Terror (1980)), Papaya goes nowhere particularly fast. A rather vivid opening packs in sex, castration, fire and cockfighting, but soon the film slows down to introduce the plot and characters - although neither are ever really fleshed out. This langurious atmosphere continues throughout, with only the occasional hint of plot, which does mean that the film often drags despite the numerous sex scenes. Interestingly the storyline avoids a descent into surreality (as one would have expected if this were a Jess Franco title) although there is a pronounced dream-like ambience for much of the runtime - unfortunately a few scenes of the native townspeople discussing their plans for the village, like a council meeting, rather damage this atmosphere.

Director Joe D'Amato had just completed his famous Black Emanuelle series when he helmed this title. He gets various chances to show off his often underrated directoral talents and the film as a whole looks very good - several of the sex scenes carry a genuine eroticism that many of his more sleazy titles would lack. Real Carribean locations are well used, both the beautiful beaches and the less attractive slums, the scenes of a parade in the town in particular are very realistic and remniscent of the Mondo Cane films of the 1960s. The two most sleazy scenes are a clearly genuine cockfight - although fortunately without too much detail - and the disembowling of a (fortunately) dead pig with a rather vivid close up on the ensuing organs. Curiously the cannibal scene itself is very brief and contains little detail - the birth of the gory cannibal movie was still a year away - as is the castration at the film's start.

Finnish actress Sirpa Lane made her name being violated by Walerian Borowczyk's Beast (1975) and went on to have a brief career in Euro-cult cinema. A rather unusual beauty, she gives a pretty decent performance here although the obvious dubbing does not help, more importantly she looks good in the film's many nude scenes. Papaya herself is played by the little known actress Melissa Chimenti (credited here simply as Melissa) in her only major film role - she plays the temptress part very well and looks like an island native. Vincent is played by Euro-cult regular Maurice Poli (Rabid Dogs (1974)) who certainly seems to be enjoying himself.

The slow lazy pace of Papaya is more remniscent of Jess Franco's 1980 era films than the often briskly paced D'Amato sleaze-fests, although without the Spanish director's trademark surrealism. It is also easy to imagine that with Laura Gemser in the lead role, the script could have been comressed to about 50 minutes and used as a chapter in one of the Black Emanuelle films, and it would perhaps have been more effective than it is here. As it is, Papaya has plenty of sex and a vivid helping of sleaze - in the shape of some animal guts - but inbetween is some very slow pacing that might well bore the less patient Euro-cult fans. Certainly of interest to fans of D'Amato or Sirpa Lane.

In brief:

The DVD

Summary

• A minor Euro-cult film, Papaya is rather slow paced but has plenty of sex and some sleaze and should be of interest to Euro-cult fans, particularly fans of Sirpa Lane or Joe D'Amato.
  

• A good looking and sounding print.

Links

• IMDB entry

• For explanations of technical terms, see the DVD Dictionary.

All text in this review written by Timothy Young - 28th June 2008.
Text from this review not to be used without authorization.

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