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Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Beneath the Valley of the UltraVixens


Russ Meyers Beneath the Valley of the UltraVixens:

Ask me where you can witness pure genius and I will send you to this Russ Meyer's masterpiece. A brilliant work like this is beyond mere words but let’s start with some of the most visually appealing cinematography ever seen. Esthetically marvelous from set to location to the very ambiance of every locale.
Meyers presents us with a seemingly simple formula; Small town America. Boy meets girl, Boy loses girl. We are drawn deeper and then realise the premise is so much less important than the implications and morals. We begin to see that the valley is of course, America's own Ego. Our Narrator is its forgotten wisdom, and the characters are America's very own sexuality.
The picture is essentially misogynist in the psychology it points to - confessing the dilemma of the American man, who is both resentful and desperate thus creating a frustrated dichotomy. He craves the breast milk He was denied Despises the 'mother' for emasculating and desensitizing his 'dirty heathen' penis. Now he attempts to avenge his genitals by sodomizing the 'mother'. This to him, lets him both feel love and punish at the same time.
Meyers brilliantly points us back to the mothers own shame and we see the women confess to their own ego's by deforming their own sexuality in some vain attempt to satisfy their own guilty self loathing. This vain penitence is represented by the grotesquely exaggerated injected breasts, which in a sick irony bear not life giving nourishment but poison.
Beyond this, Meyers takes us to the places of Puritanism, racism and yes even to forgiveness. Ultimately Meyers takes us 'beneath the valley' which is of course mortality itself - or at least our fear of it. Brilliantly, Meyers does not just point at death but leaves us with both heeding and hope.
Beneath the valley of the ultra vixens is a brilliant answer to an important question: Who was America in the late 20th century? This reviewer bows before the greatest of American Masters - Russ Meyers

Stars; Candy Samples, Kitten Navitad, Ken Kerr
Screenplay written by Roger Ebert. (Yes.. The Roger Ebert) Rated; Adults only!

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