A clever re-telling of the pious legend of the Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, favourite homo-erotic subject of Italian Renaissance painters.
A small detachment of Roman soldiers guard a tower in some desert setting, under the command of one officer. Boredom and lust simmer under the desert sun, especially as the officer, Severus (hahaha) develops an obsessive, wine-soaked craving for the strange, un-soldierly Sebastianus, who refuses to be had.
Under the mask of Christian chastity, Sebastianus is playing a searing game of Sado-masochism, in which his "chaste" refusal only exacerbates Severus' desire to the point of madness.
The physical tortures to which the thus-maddened Severus subjects the more than willing Sebastianus turn, in the end, into a hot snuff story.
This little incident is told in a manner emblematic of the 1970s. Any of these images could have happened on the beach at Fire Island... They remind one of Fellini's Casanova, Hair, Oh, Calcutta, the Gore Vidal Caligula, Jesus Christ, Superstar and other flower-child epics, complete with skinny, scruffy men in lusty Afros dancing in the buff. All that's missing is the poppers.
The Roman soldiers are rather laughably British-looking (they resemble the Bee-Gees) except the Sebastianus, Leonardo Treviglio, who looks comically Italian. He has the skinniest legs of all.
The language of the film is college-professor Latin, stiffly rehearsed by the actors in any number of classroom-variety pronunciations. Treviglio's is a kind of French-flavoured, softly-inflected Italian Latin. Very seductive.
The form Sebastiane, by-the-by, is the name Sebastianus in the Vocative case, the case used to call or invoke. Thus the title of the film would be translated, Oh, Sebastian!shadows of Oh, Calcutta!
An enjoyable, sexy period piece.
A small detachment of Roman soldiers guard a tower in some desert setting, under the command of one officer. Boredom and lust simmer under the desert sun, especially as the officer, Severus (hahaha) develops an obsessive, wine-soaked craving for the strange, un-soldierly Sebastianus, who refuses to be had.
Under the mask of Christian chastity, Sebastianus is playing a searing game of Sado-masochism, in which his "chaste" refusal only exacerbates Severus' desire to the point of madness.
The physical tortures to which the thus-maddened Severus subjects the more than willing Sebastianus turn, in the end, into a hot snuff story.
This little incident is told in a manner emblematic of the 1970s. Any of these images could have happened on the beach at Fire Island... They remind one of Fellini's Casanova, Hair, Oh, Calcutta, the Gore Vidal Caligula, Jesus Christ, Superstar and other flower-child epics, complete with skinny, scruffy men in lusty Afros dancing in the buff. All that's missing is the poppers.
The Roman soldiers are rather laughably British-looking (they resemble the Bee-Gees) except the Sebastianus, Leonardo Treviglio, who looks comically Italian. He has the skinniest legs of all.
The language of the film is college-professor Latin, stiffly rehearsed by the actors in any number of classroom-variety pronunciations. Treviglio's is a kind of French-flavoured, softly-inflected Italian Latin. Very seductive.
The form Sebastiane, by-the-by, is the name Sebastianus in the Vocative case, the case used to call or invoke. Thus the title of the film would be translated, Oh, Sebastian!shadows of Oh, Calcutta!
An enjoyable, sexy period piece.