The Laughing Woman (1970)

User Review

• 

  BarneyNuttall

  8 / 10

  Schivazappa's The Frightened Woman is a pop-art thriller that draws on rich symbolism, surreal set design, and a sharp female protagonist to make a highly entertaining film. When Maria (Dagmar Lassander) is kidnapped by her boss Dr. Sayer (Phillippe Leroy) she becomes victim to his fetishist misogynist control. Maris has to outsmart her opponent in a battle of wits, a battle between man and woman.
  
  Dr. Sayer's house provides the backdrop for most of the film. An amalgamation of a Scooby-Doo haunted house and the modernist house from A Clockwork Orange, the set design appears like a cell, with mitochondria shaped carpets and ribosome decorative pieces. This is established when Maria notices the microscopic disease decor that the Doctor has on his wall. Evidently, the man is plagued by a disease, that being misogyny. This is, in fact, how the issue ios presented. Dr. Sawyer goes from sadist to a sympathetic figure, helpless to sadist desires.
  
  It was here that I almost lost hope. Maria actually manages to seduce the Doctor, making him fall in love with her. However, before simply disregarding Maria as a victim of Stockholm Syndrome, one has to remember that she is highly intelligent. Maria is, in fact, the ultimate femme fatale, able to shift the balance of power with sublime sexual power.
  
  Much like Nora in Ibsen's A Doll's House, Maria uses her sexuality for her own good in an environment that condemns feminity. Schivazappa creates a surreal thriller that goes from Argento horror to a Petri-like romance where we watch and relish our protagonist's success in the face of a man who is most evil.

  Like?

  0 member like this review.