The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik Yak

MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

Based on a popular French comic strip, this lavish and erotic adventure fantasy (said to be one of the most expensive films in the history of French cinema) chronicles the exploits of a sexy young girl who escapes from a convent to go looking for the father she has not seen in many years. The story features plenty of female nudity. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

DVD FEATURES:

• Region: All
• Number of Discs: 1
• Audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
• Screen: Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 (Cinemascope)
• Features:
  • Revealing Tawny Kitaen photospread for French LUI magazine
  • The Last Temptation of Just: interview with director Just Jaeckin
  • Theatrical trailers

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Cast:

  
       Tawny Kitaen - Gwendoline
       Brent Huff - Willard
       Zabou - Beth
       Bernadette Lafont - The Queen
       Jean Rougerie - D'Arcy
       Georges Lycan
       Vernon Dobtcheff
       Dominique Marcas
       Takashi Kawahara
       Maurice Lamy
       Roland Amstutz
       Andre Julien - Tom

• Director:

  Just Jaeckin

• Producer:

  Jean-Claude Fleury

• Screenwriter:

  Just Jaeckin

• Cinematographer:

  André Domage, Jean-Paul Meurisse

• Composer (Music Score):

  Pierre Bachelet

• Production Designer:

  Francoise de Leu

• Art Director:

  Francoise de Leu

• Sound/Sound Designer:

  René Levert

• Makeup:

  Reiko Kruk, Dominique Colladant

• Production Manager:

  Pierre Gauchet

REVIEW:

• Famed French master of eroticism Just Jaeckin serves up this highly bizarre hybrid of Indiana Jones rip-off adventure meets surreal European art house in Gwendoline, a mind-numbing picture of epically out-there proportions. Starring '80s video sex symbol Tawny Kitaen, the movie was both a commercial stab as well as an artistic statement that goes well beyond the bar set by similarly themed films of the time. Released in the States in a trimmed-down form as The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik-Yak, the cut seen by foreigners wasn't so much filled with more steam as it was goofy humor, giving the film an extra silly factor that makes it all the more strange when one considers the 180-degree turn it takes at the midway point. Looking like something out of Alejandro Jodorowsky's Holy Mountain, the last half of the picture, set in the fictitious land of the Yik-Yak, is truly something amazing to behold. Half-naked future gladiator women slave over technology right out of Fritz Lang's Metropolis, while others look like new wave samurai if Akira Kurosawa tried his hand at Barbarella with Guy Maddin as his co-director. All the while, Jaeckin films the scenes with an artful elegance that elevates the production from just a hokey romp to a souvenir of French cinema that would not even be attempted in modern times. As far as the amount of skin goes, the nudity isn't exploited for graphic sexual exploits, rather it is played with an abandon dictated by the style, not titillation of the picture. While the flick may indeed be corny, the production values push Gwendoline into a territory all its own, made even more special by the appearance of Kitaen, who's both charming and stunning in her big screen follow-up to playing Tom Hanks' wife in Bachelor Party. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, Rovi