Exposed

Exposed (1971)

This is an interesting little movie starring the lovely Christina Lindberg, from Thriller a Cruel Picture. Unlike that movie, which has a revenge plot mixed in with it’s sleaze, this one is just really a sleazy little exploitation film. Lindberg plays Lena, a young student that is taken advantage of by an older man. He gets her to pose for some naked pictures and the uses those to blackmail her. Through a series of flashbacks we see him make her sleep with several of his friends. When she goes to her boyfriend he initially rejects her, which makes her run away to an isolated cabin. He eventually goes to get her and together they try to figure a way to get the pictures back from the man. Or at least I think this is the plot. The movie keeps backtracking and we see that most of the bad things that happen are all in Lena’s imagination, which of course puts the whole ending and plot with the pictures into some doubt.

Exposed was a really confusing, but interesting movie to watch. Most of the sleazy stuff that happens to Lena (the rape, bondage stuff) as well as the car crash and violence seems to totally be in her head. So we basically get all the things you would expect in an exploitation movie, but with the added twist that as an audience we are never quite sure what really happened and what was only in Lena’s imagination. Initially I found this very frustrating and annoying, but the longer the movie went on the more I got into it. Still to be honest there isn’t a whole lot to the movie, and it becomes a bit repetitive after a while. There is also a very strange part were we see Lena and her boyfriend step into a movie theater where we then watch a few minutes of a Tarzan movie from I think the 40s. Not quite sure what that was all about. In the end I did find the story to be somewhat interesting and different from what I was expecting, and the movie does a great job of packing in as much nudity and sleaze as possible (even if it is all in the Lena character’s head!). So I would have to say the movie delivers.

One of the things that really stood out for me when watching Exposed is that for a lower budget exploitation movie it is beautifully shot. Really the scene where Lena is at the lake with the couple that picks her up on the road is really well done. At the same time some of the lighting wasn’t very good for the interior shots. So technically it is a mixed bag. Though I was amazed again at how nice the movie looked and want to give props to Synapse. They always do a great job making all of their releases look as good as possible, and have done so here again. It is nice to see a company give a movie like Exposed this kind of treatment.

Speaking of Synapse this is obviously a review for the new DVD coming out from them. There is one really cool special feature that I wanted to mention from the disc. It is called Over Exposed and contains interviews with the director, Gustav Wiklund, and the star Christina Lindberg. It is a fairly short feature (less than 20 minutes I think) but packs in a lot of cool facts. They go over how the movie was writing and financed, how they cast Lindberg, and a little bit about taking the movie to Cannes. Wiklund also has a great story about what might of happened if he had pursued a conversation he had with an American director at the first screening of the movie, but I won’t ruin it for you. This is a really cool special feature and if you purchase the DVD I recommend you check it out.

If you are a fan of Christina Lindberg then I think you will want to pick this DVD up for sure. I’m glad to have added it to my collection, though I’m not sure if it is the kind of movie that I’ll end up watching again. Once you know the twist to the story line it really isn’t much more than a beautiful young woman rolling around naked with a few different men. Not that there is anything wrong with that. For more information on where you can get this and the other great releases from Synapse head over to their website at http://www.synapse-films.com/

2 ½ out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer