Fuego (1969 film)

Fuego (Spanish for "fire") is a 1969 Argentine sexploitation film written, produced and directed by Armando Bó and starring Isabel Sarli. It is one of the many erotic films that the couple made between 1959 and 1980.

Fuego
American theatrical release poster
Directed byArmando Bó
Written byArmando Bó
Produced byArmando Bó
StarringIsabel Sarli
Armando Bó
CinematographyRicardo Younis
Edited byRosalino Caterbetti
Music byHumberto Ubriaco
Armando Bó
Production
company
Sociedad Independiente Filmadora Argentina (S.I.F.A.)
Distributed byHaven International Pictures (U.S.)
Release dates
10 October 1969 (U.S.)
23 September 1971 (Argentina)
Running time
84 minutes
CountryArgentina
LanguageSpanish

Cast

Production

The film was shot between 1968 and 1969 in the Patagonian town of San Martín de los Andes and New York City.

Starting in 1968, the Sarli-Bo films began to focus more on sex. Columbia regularly called Bo to ask how many sex scenes were in the movie.

Release

The film became the first Argentine film banned following new censorship rules under military dictator Juan Carlos Onganía. Advised by Jaime Cabouli, a well-known distributor, Bó and Sarli went to New York City with the film's negative where it was released, following a $150,000 publicity campaign, at the Rialto West and Rialto East on October 10, 1969.[1][2][3]

Critical reception

American film critic Roger Greenspun gave the film a positive review, writing in The New York Times that "Isabel Sarli squeezes more sexual frisson into the space between breathing in and breathing out than most of us could spread over a lifetime of ordinary love-making."[4]

Legacy

If you watch some of my films, you can see what a huge influence Fuego was. I forgot how much I stole. ... Look at Isabel's makeup and hairdo in Fuego. Dawn Davenport, Divine's character in [Female Trouble], could be her exact twin, only heavier. Isabel, you inspired us all to a life of cheap exhibitionism, exaggerated sexual desires and a love for all that is trash-ridden in cinema. We salute you, Isabel Sarli, a truly outstanding woman in film.

— John Waters, John Waters Presents Movies That Will Corrupt You, 2006.[4]

Fuego has been considered "a milestone in the history of Argentine cinema" and one of Sarli's "erotic peaks".[5] The relationship between Isabel Sarli and Alba Mujica's characters is one of the first representations of lesbianism in Argentine cinema.[6] Lucía Brackes of Los Andes reflected in 2012 that "Coca is such a whore that she becomes a lesbian, a revolutionary and almost militant idea about the oppressed condition of women."[7]

John Waters has declared himself a big fan of Sarli's films, citing Fuego as his favorite.[8] He and Divine were admirers of Sarli and watched her movies in New York City's grindhouses.[8] Waters presented Fuego as his annual selection in the 2002 Maryland Film Festival and featured it in his 2006 Here! network original series John Waters Presents Movies That Will Corrupt You, where he described it as "a hetero film for gay people to marvel at."[9] The director and Sarli finally met in 2018 on the occasion of the BAFICI film festival in Buenos Aires, where he gave her an award for her career and interviewed her on video.[8]

In 2010, the Film Society of Lincoln Center paid tribute to Sarli with a retrospective titled "Fuego: The Films of Isabel 'Coca' Sarli", screening five of her films in addition to Diego Curubeto's Carne Sobre Carne: Intimidades de Isabel Sarli, a documentary focusing on her career.[4] Richard Corliss of Time wrote: "Seeing them today, nearly a half-century after they were made, a moviegoer thinks of lurid Hollywood love stories like Duel in the Sun, but with a much higher body temperature, and especially of Latin American telenovelas, those churning mixtures of female concupiscence and narrative coincidence. The world-class Spanish writer-director Pedro Almodóvar learned much from them, though it's not known if he used the Sarli-Bó films as his models."[4]

Notes
  1. "Combate contra la censura". La Nación (in Spanish). January 8, 2003. Retrieved March 8, 2020.
  2. Isabel Sarli, Fernando Martin Peña, Fabio Manes (September 25, 2012). Filmoteca (Television production) (in Spanish). Televisión Pública Argentina.
  3. "Preem of 'Fuego' in N.Y. Another Bitter Pill For Argentine Film Industry". Variety. 15 October 1969. p. 19.
  4. Corliss, Richard (7 August 2010). "Isabel Sarli: A Sex Bomb at Lincoln Center". Time. Archived from the original on August 26, 2010. Retrieved 28 June 2019.
  5. "Isabel la "Coca" Sarli: de aquel desnudo casi revolucionario al personaje de culto". Clarín (in Spanish). 25 June 2019. Retrieved 28 June 2019.
  6. Ranzani, Oscar (26 June 2019). "Murió Isabel "la Coca" Sarli". Página/12 (in Spanish). Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  7. Brackes, Lucía (25 October 2012). "El último Bo". Los Andes (in Spanish). Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  8. Isabel Sarli y John Waters (video). BAFICI on Facebook. 16 April 2018. Retrieved 28 June 2019.
  9. "Carta de un león a otro". Página/12 (in Spanish). 23 October 2009. Retrieved 28 June 2019.

References
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