The movie begins with news footage showing the counting of votes for a presidential election. We then meet Senator Puppis (Lando Buzzanca) who is at the airport to meet the female president of the fictional Republic of Uria (given as Urania in some versions). Urians are apparently a dark skinned people who wear colourful saris and turbans. Their female leader has a painted dot between her eyebrows. But it's "Uria", not "India".
The people in charge of filming this statecraft find it all pretty boring, until - wait for it - they realise they have Puppis on film, grabbing the rather homely, horse-faced Urian president's tush. One of the executives gasps at this display and reports breathlessly, "So he's not a fag!"
There is some jiggery-pokery going on behind the scenes at Puppis's campaign. He has been using a rival, Torsello, as a pawn for political advancement with some kind of uneasy truce, but now he has to figure out a way to get rid of him. A Catholic clergyman arrives at his headquarters, and cheerfully calls Torcello a "pain in the ass", talk which must have sounded pretty strong coming from a priest back then - but in regards to bad behaviour by the clergy, we ain't seen nothing yet. He also eats like a pig, apparently making our Puppis feel nauseated. Sexual harassment? Good. Poor table manners? Disgraceful.
We then get another man clothed in priestly garb hanging out in a bar and smoking a cigar.
Puppis has a remarkably square jaw, like a superhero, but the actor does not make him particularly charismatic. He actually looks quite a bit like Louis Theroux.
He meets the cigar chomping priest in a confessional where the man of the cloth blackmails him with photos of his sexual harassment.
The senator apparently realises he has to curb his predatory sexual impulses, which is difficult, as he fantasizes about images of a naked woman, giving us the movie's first nudity at the fifteen minute mark.
In an elevator with a woman, Puppis puts on a life or death struggle to avoid grabbing her butt. He sticks his hand out and stops himself, scrunching his eyes closed and making himself vibrate, such is the urge. The music even gets all spooky. It's like he's possessed by a demon that wants to degrade women. Is that why the movie was (re-)named "The Eroticist"?
The priest takes Puppis on a road trip to meet an exorcist who can cure him of this urge, but while alone in the car he starts spotting bottoms with girls attached to them, and they pull him to them like a tractor beam. He grabs one saucy bottom and - look out! It's a Scottish man wearing a kilt. Though it's not even tartan. It's a skirt.
Unfortunately the exorcist lives with a beautiful young nun, Sister Delicata, who seems not too wary of Puppis right from the outset.
People investigating Puppis seem to think he might be gay - which is probably a bigger crime than his actual harassment of any woman who crosses his path.
"They say Italy is a republic founded on work," the inspector explains. "You know what I think it's founded on? Ass!"
Speaking of ass, the senator goes to sleep with his hand on the nun's, while she prays to god not to give in to her carnal urges for him. This provides a pretty interesting, arguably blasphemous image of a nun praying with a man's hand grafted to her behind.
They cannot get the senator's hand off the Sister's bottom, so resolve that she will have to stay with him while he sleeps.
Political figures are also lampooned. The rivals trying to sabotage Puppis's career are shown not really knowing the difference between "left wing" and "right wing", which is depicted more as a minor technicality, and yet also something they are willing to go to war over.
A bunch of senior church officials are shown prostrating themselves on a church floor for some ceremony or other, while jostling and whispering to each other like school kids.
During his first session with the exorcist, Puppis says he "sees asses everywhere", and the priest tests him with some pornography he apparently had on hand. After also grabbing the priest's "botty", he has a flashback to his childhood where he was told by another priest to beware of women. We also get a brilliantly shot dream sequence, in which Puppis imagines many nuns nude except for their long flowing habits, standing in a line so that he can walk alongside them, groping their peachy bottoms.
The cardinal of the church, played by blacklisted US actor Lionel Stander, is apparently the main bad guy in this story, whose lesson led to Puppis's neurosis, and who now uses it against him for political gain. Puppis, even after visiting the exorcist, still has visions of naked women, now with their private parts obscured by money because he has been asked questions about the budget.
The movie lost me a little bit toward the end. I know nothing about Italian politics, nor the role the Church has in it. It seemed to become a little more serious with its commentary, but this was lost on me.
Somehow the senator was able to rein in his urges, but then the beautiful nun showed up and whipped her top off, showing her fantastic breasts. He is worried that this might trigger a relapse. She asks him to whip her.
They have a proper sexual relationship, but then the Cardinal comes back and kidnaps the girl. They kill Puppis's rival and he is declared winner of the election by default. Now just a bland figurehead, the news of his ascension to the highest office in the land - Puppis the Puppet - is switched off by some men in a bar, who would rather watch a game show.
Gee whiz! I was not expecting this movie to be anything like as fiercely and controversially polemical as it was. This is one of the most bitter attacks on religion and politics I have ever seen. I'm not surprised it was banned in Italy.
It's also fantastically well made. Fulci was a brilliant filmmaker at the start of his career, who went to absolute garbage in the '80s. I say he was the best Italian filmmaker of his generation. "The Eroticist" is proof.
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