Bibi (1974)

What I've learned from watching the films of erotic drama director Joe Sarno is that he seems to be a one trick pony. To my knowledge he has made four films in the span of a few years with the same plot of a sexually dull woman going off to live with some female relative, which leads to her sexual awakening. And I'm sure that the four I know of aren't the only Sarno films with that exact plot. Personally, he should have just stopped with Inga. Inga was the start of this trend of stories in Sarno's films, and while it wasn't perfect, it worked for what it was. But apparently Joe wanted to perfect this story, so here we have Bibi, probably the second best of these movies, but that isn't saying much.

The story of Bibi is about a sexually dull female (Bibi) goes to live with her aunt, and during her stay her lustful curiosity for lesbianism gets the best of her and the rest of the movie from there is a series of sex scenes. Admittedly I like the idea of a confused young woman wrestling with her sexuality and finding solace in these experimental sexual encounters, which the movie sets up well for the first half of the movie.

Where the film drags is during the second half, which is nothing but a series of sex scenes, one after the other. There isn't any variation in the sex except for the gender of the lover, the bed and once in a while a toy is involved. I understand this is supposed to show the rapidly advancing sexual hunger of Bibi, but there is barely any rest from one jarring sex scene to another. There is no set up or payoff to these scenes and they end just as fast as they begin, like a quickie in a bathroom stall. I can think of tons of scenarios they could have used in this movie to spice it up:

1. Bibi goes to a bar and flaunts herself in front of a group of guys, who have a foursome in a bathroom with her.

2. She has one of the already established male characters take her out to a movie and performs fellatio in the theater.

3. During dinner, Bibi teases or pleasures one of the ladies casually under the table.

With a story of the overly rampant sexual appetite of a young woman you can do a lot with that story. Instead, the sex scenes are repetitive and become dull after a certain point. I will admit that the sex scenes, like all of the sex scenes I've seen so far in Joe Sarno flicks, are that perfect balance of sexy, sensual and loving. The man knows how to direct sex well, but sadly I feel like that's all he's capable of doing.

I understand erotic films such as this are going to have a large amount of sex scenes in it, but there's a fine line between a plot about sex and a plot that leads to sex. The latter is just porn. Porn is half an hour of sex and two minutes of plot, while a perfect example of a plot ABOUT sex would be Blue is the Warmest Color. That movie was over three hours long, but it was an engaging three hours because we have the whole spectrum of a young sex based relationship with carefully sprinkled in sex scenes which are tastefully shot. Bibi runs at about forty-five minutes too long. If Joe Sarno could keep a film like Inga, which deals with themes infidelity, pedophilia and controversial relationships, as well as the fear of becoming less desirable, and keep it at barely over an hour, then he could write a film like Bibi and keep it under the overly drawn out hour and forty-five minute runtime.

If you want a recommendation for a good erotic drama about confused teenage sexuality then just watch Blue is the Warmest Color if it's still on Netflix.