Severin Films | Buy at Amazon | Review by Sinferno
Gee, a foreign film with a beautiful young prostitute on the cover. I wonder what it could be about? Don't let my initial jaded quips fool you, this one is actually full of surprises. By the time I read the box and saw the quotation marks of hype describing the film as "An extreme Exploitation Gem!" or "Tons of nudity, graphic sex and some of the Sleaziest Scenes in Cinema History!" I made certain assumptions about the breadth and depth of this film, none of which turned out to be true. Sure this film chock full of all the aforementioned cinema devices of cheap and easy titillation but there is something more here than just a random allotment of scenes of abuse and self destruction so common to the genre. Basically, it is a clone of the cautionary teenage prostitution movie "Christine F" and by basically, I am saying that is exactly what it is, down to the last scene, only more hardcore. In some ways this increases the sexy quotient and in other ways it makes this film seem like a very bizarre after school special, where moral messages are mixed with some very attractive, unrated love scenes.
Hanna D details the story of a young Amsterdam prostitute who has a really crummy life. While some of her suffering is due to her own personal choice and addiction to heroin, other factors beyond her control plague her very existence such as the fact that everyone in her life is ten kinds of toxic treating Hannah D Herself as a source of income, sexual amusement and personal gain. Her mother encourages her to flirt with her own much younger boyfriend in order to keep him. Her aforementioned step-dad figure who is closer in age to her than her mother sneaks into her room at night and gropes her. Her dealer abuses her then plays cruel emotional games of withholding in order to make her sweat and pretty much everyone else in her life are ten kinds of bastard, all of whom who want poor Hanna for a litany of reasons, all of them bad. Of course this would be bleak indeed if this was the entirety of the action in this film, and eventually poor Hanna does meet a man who loves her more than she hates herself. It plays out like a dark Cinderella story with no glass slippers, but plenty of glass vials filled with the wrong kind of "magic".
But this crude synopsis is only what happens in Hanna, a topographical map of the highs and lows. Of equal intensity and perhaps more importance is the character of Hanna D herself. A young woman with Uma Thurman eyes and a waif like countenance who somehow exudes beauty even as she is consumed throughout the film by beasts within and without. There is no rape in this film, this makes it somehow darker, sadder, this element of conscious choice, the always bad options that Hanna is constantly forced to choose from on a daily basis. The fact that there is no quick and easy sexual violence makes Hannah D more cerebral and compelling and keeps it from losing itself in the usual distracting sleaze of similar films about working girl revenge fantasies such as "Thriller" or "Whore". This is the story of a sweet, beautiful young girl who gradually watches her options, hope and future plunge away with every thrust of a dirty john or a clean needle and we mourn her even as we wish we could love her, hold her, save her. Yet many exploitation fans who buy movies about prostitution for all manner of dark voyeuristic delight will be ultimately disappointed, because this is fundamentally a simple love story at its core.
Hannah D is the dangerous delicate balance between immoral porno and moral fable (predictably, it truly excels at neither). Like the old candy bar ad goes. "Someone got responsible social commentary in my sexploitation/Someone got sexploitation in my responsible social commentary!" And either way, it just tastes tampered with, tainted. Don't let the sleazalicious graphics on the box trick you, this one was meant to hit you in the heart as well as in the crotch. Edited by Bruno Mattei with all the generous skin shots he is known for, Hanna is a ultimately study of male ugliness and female beauty with a rational coherent plot. Whether that makes up for the fact it is ultimately tame and repetitious according to the rules of the genre it voluntarily links itself with is up to you.
| Yucko/Neato Factor: Lots of gritty action. Vomit pours from mouths, drugs are pulled from rectums and needles are shoved bodily places even most deranged junkies would not attempt. Except for the visual intensity of these moments however, I have seen this exact movie before, in the preachy German film "Christine F". Unrated but tasteful in its inherent tastelessness. |
 |
| Production Values: It wasn't high budget, but the Amsterdam and Rome shooting locales made it seem organically exotic. |
|
| Realism: I've actually known women exactly like this. Dated one too. A shout out to Keltika wherever you are (if you are still alive). |
 |
| Value for Price: $22.99 is too much for any single film/single disk title that is over twenty years old (1984) regardless of its content. |
 |
| Plot: A sexploitation movie that wants to be something more. It is, but some of the other elements suffer for it. |
 |
