Macumba Sexual (1981)

For Jess Franco fans, the Golden Films era represents a real enigma. Having worked in relatively big budget cinema for 10 years across Europe, the director (and his wife Lina Romay) returned to Spain and began shooting literally dozens of films per year, often on tiny budgets and with small casts - films that for the most part were rarely seen outside Spain. Free of commercial influences, Franco was free to shoot some very personal films, and he was similarly able to experiment with the free-form/erotic cinema that he had first dabbled in during his co-production years with Harry Alan Towers in the late 1960s.

Alice (Lina Romay) and her husband (Antonio Mayans) are on holiday - she is suffering from vivid, sexual dreams about a mysterious black woman known as Tara (Ajita Wilson). A call from work comes through and she is asked to visit a near-by island to sell a house to a Princess Obongo, whom she soon discovers is Tara herself. Entering the kingdom of the mysterious woman, she soon finds herself at the mercy of her vicious slaves and forbidden lusts...

From the film's opening scenes, it is clear that this is not a typical, narrative story - instead a vivid mix of dreams, sex, fantasy and reality combine to give the film a unique fever-dream atmosphere that only Franco can create. The script works effectively to keep the film moving throughout, and avoids becoming merely an episodic collection of set-pieces, while the film's climax and conclusion are suitably fitting. Unlike many similar productions, the sex scenes here are all a part of the plot and never come off as gratuitous. Interestingly, there seems to be a very twisted Dracula theme running throught many parts of the story - Alice as an estate agent, being called to sell a house to Princess Obongo and falling under her spell, with Tara/Obongo then seducing her husband, plays out like a reversal of the Harker, Dracula and Mina characters of the novel, while the character of the insane hotel manager (played by Jess Franco himself) would be this story's Renfield.

Franco's direction is strong here, with some very nice camera-work that helps to give the film its strange atmosphere - in particular, some wonderfully desolate long shots and interesting use of authentic African ritual imagery. The sex scenes are nicely directed, and although very explicit (bordering on hardcore in a few places), never seem gratuitous or unnecessary - in particular, the shots of Ajita Wilson's black hands on Romay's white flesh during their sex scenes, do look very good. Franco's soundtrack (credited, as usual, to Pablo Villa) is effective, and the location work is spectacular, with Obongo's island truly feeling like another world.