Baba Yaga

Corrado Farina is an Italian filmmaker and novelist who spent most of his career producing commercials and documentaries. But he's also known for two cult feature films he directed in the early '70's; They've Changed Faces (1971) and Baba Yaga (1973). Both films have horror elements (and Farina is a refreshingly unapologetic fan of the genre), however their true mark of distinction is due to their unique, quirky, retro-cool and heavy-on-the-symbolism demeanor. While Giallo enthusiasts are left to wait for Farina's first feature to make its state-side appearance, Blue Underground's recent release of Baba Yaga on DVD allows interested parties to fire up their lava lamps, pull up a beanbag chair, and soak up some groovy and surreal lesbian-tinged and supernatural erotica. Baba Yaga is based on the fetishistic and S&M comic Valentina by Guido Crepax (born 1933). A student of the School of Architecture at the University of Milan, Crepax made his debut in comics in 1965 and has since been credited with revolutionizing, and stretching the boundaries (both in form and content) of what comics could be. What started out as a minor character, a woman named Valentina, would soon take center stage as his biggest creation. In an interview with director Farina, available as one of the DVD extras, he mentions how Valentina was "inspired by the silent movies of Louise Brooks, from the early films of Pabst." Valentina's erotic adventures have since been translated and reprinted in various magazines (ie: Heavy Metal) where her fetishistic fantasies have percolated and morphed their way into the imagination of younger generations across the globe. What Farina does in his film with Valentina is turn her into a fashion photographer (played by Isabelle de Funes) who suddenly becomes the focus of a witch's desire. The witch, Baba Yaga (Carroll Baker, of Baby Doll and Giant fame), has the ability to curse all the things she touches, including Valentina's camera. As Valentina's models being to die off mysteriously, plenty of weirdness follows - a killer doll garbed in S&M gear, bizarre and fetish-riddled dreams, and an erotic confrontation between Valentina and Baba Yaga. Left-brain viewers beware, the joys of Baba Yaga are not to be found in following the logic or narrative, but rather in letting its hipster canvas, sewn together with brief flashes of experimentation and a style all its own, wash over you with its own dream logic. While Ang Lee gets well-deserved kudos for choreographing innovative editing techniques that bring the comic-book aesthetic alive on screen, fans of graphic novels should definitely take a peak at Farina's similar experiments, which preceded the Hulk by 30 years and have an entirely different artistic flourish that is true to its comic source. Blue Underground's DVD release of BABA YAGA is presented in a beautiful and crisp widescreen anamorphic ratio (1.85:1), and includes a theatrical trailer, deleted scenes, a poster and still gallery, an interview with the director, a documentary on Crepax titled Freud in Color, and a comic-book-to-film comparison DVD-rom feature. For more information about Baba Yaga, visit Blue Underground. To order Baba Yaga, go to TCM Shopping. by Pablo Kjolseth