I attended a John Waters Q & A a while back and asked him who his favorite under-the-radar B-movie director was and he responded with Armando Bo. Since I had already seen (and loved) Fuego, I knew I had to start checking into Bo’s back catalogue. The fact that he always cast the buxom and beautiful Isabel Sarli (his on-screen muse as well as off) in his films, didn’t hurt either.
The first thing you see in Carne is Sarli posing nude. That’s quickly followed by a love scene AND a rape scene… all BEFORE the opening credits!
See, Sarli loves her boyfriend, who is an artist and paints her in the nude. They both have a day job at the local meat packing plant. Her rapist is a trucker who delivers meat to the place. After raping her again, he kidnaps her and holds her captive in his meat truck where he shares her with his friends.
Bo has been called the Argentinian Russ Meyer, and for good reason. Not only does he love to feature hot busty babes in his movies, but the stylized editing and camerawork is very reminiscent of old Russ. He certainly isn’t subtle. Consider the scenes of Sarli in the factory as she symbolically handles raw meat. The way her attacker views her as “meat” is so “on the nose”, it could very well be up the nose. The scene where she is chased through a veritable maze of hanging beef in the meat locker by her rapist is effective too, although some will be put off by the scene when he throws her on a slab of beef and says, “Meat on meat!” before defiling her. Oh, and did I mention when he throws her in his truck, there’s a cutaway to some signage that reads, “Meat in Transit”?
Most of the drama comes from whether her beau will A) Avenge Sarli’s defilement and/or B) Forgive her. I’m sure you can pretty much guess what will happen.
The reason to watch it is for Sarli. Despite this being an exploitation flick, she doesn’t get naked as often as you might expect. That’s appropriate too, given the subject matter. However, those brief nude scenes are really something. Because of Sarli, Carne is enjoyable even if the rest of the film isn’t exactly well done.
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