This almost-giallo from Corrado Farina started out life in the pages of Guido Crepax’s sublime fumetti Valentina, and, along with Bava’s Danger: Diabolik (1968), remains one of the truest in spirit to the source material. Valentina (French actress Isabelle De Funes) is a hip socialite and glamour photographer in swinging Milan. Tottering home from a typically way-out party, she’s nearly hit by a limousine as she rescues a dog from the middle of the road. The owner (Caroll Baker in unconvincing old-age makeup) introduces herself as ‘Baba Yaga’ and tells Valentina that they were always destined to meet.
When she returns to her photography studio for a day of steamy but playful model work, it appears that the old woman has put some sort of hex on her; she can’t keep her mind on anything without drifting into bizarre and erotic fantasies (something that the comic Valentina does in every story anyway, witch or no witch) and it seems her camera is cursed, causing the deaths of a couple of her models. She is also given a creepily lifelike doll by Baba Yaga – a creepily lifelike doll that also happens to be lovingly dressed up in miniature S&M gear. A visit to the old witch’s crumbling gothic townhouse also reveals that Yaga has a bottomless pit in one of her rooms…
When she returns to her photography studio for a day of steamy but playful model work, it appears that the old woman has put some sort of hex on her; she can’t keep her mind on anything without drifting into bizarre and erotic fantasies (something that the comic Valentina does in every story anyway, witch or no witch) and it seems her camera is cursed, causing the deaths of a couple of her models. She is also given a creepily lifelike doll by Baba Yaga – a creepily lifelike doll that also happens to be lovingly dressed up in miniature S&M gear. A visit to the old witch’s crumbling gothic townhouse also reveals that Yaga has a bottomless pit in one of her rooms…
In many ways Baba Yaga is a bit of a mess. It’s a rather episodic and disjointed affair that doesn’t really know what it wants to be. This doesn’t stop it from being beautiful, however – as it is also one of the most elegant and pleasing embodiments of Italian trash cinema at its most divine. Farina’s film is perhaps not as brash and arresting as the work of some of our better known maestri, but it does leave its mark on the viewer.It’s the sort of film where the viewer feels that almost anything can happen, although this is compromised slightly by its relatively formulaic horror film type ending.
Despite not being the director’s first choices for the roles, De Funes and Baker carry the film well. De Funes’ Valentina seems a little more wide-eyed and innocent than Crepax’s but there’s no denying their resemblance. There’s also an enjoyable turn from Luigi ‘George Eastman’ Montifiori – it’s nice to see him doing well in the role of a sensitive leftist intellectual this time, a far cry from his roles in films like Rabid Dogs (1974) and Absurd (1981)! Also of note – and that’s a bit of an understatement – is one Ely Galleani, who also played Florinda Bolkan’s minxy younger sister in Fulci’s Lizard in a Woman’s Skin (1971) and worked with Bava on 5 Dolls for an August Moon (1970). Prepare for your TV screen to set on fire when she shows up in a role I’m not telling you here because I don’t do spoilers. Often.
Lounge god Piero Umiliani is on soundtrack duties for this one, providing a very groovy main theme – actually a track called ‘Open Space’ that kicks off his To-day’s Sound LP of the same year – and a contrastingly old-fashioned and romantic recurring piano theme. They both fit perfectly. On the whole, Baba Yaga is perhaps no great masterpiece but, if you’re anything like me, it’s one you’ll keep wanting to come back to.
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