This contrived, often pretentious, example of artsy-fartsy 1970s' black & white soft-core pornography suffers from a surfeit of plot and a shortage of nudity. You know that a porn movie is in trouble when it tries to justify its nude scenes with a story so that the sex doesn't lack motivation. Whereas most sexploitation nudie-cuties are primarily upbeat but kinky, "The Electronic Lover" qualifies as downbeat but kinky. In other words, the prurient minded will find the first half-hour of this marginally more than an hour in length epic rather insipid. Matters are not helped by the unsympathetic protagonist who has had a bad experience with heterosexual love. Repeatedly, he howls in agony for the benefit of his slavish assistant: "Never give your love away." This troubled individual alternates his time between archery in the woods and electronic voyeurism in his tent with a massive looking computer. Presumably, they filmmakers were channeling "2001: A Space Odyssey." He wears the same clothes throughout the film. Meaning, the eponymous protagonist who looks like Rock Hudson is a tortured peeping Tom too terrified to venture out on his own and participate in orgies. Not until director Jesse Berger trots the naked dames across the screen during the second half-hour does this illusion versus reality movie deliver lots of nudity. The gals are gorgeous, particularly African-American actress Natara. One scene concerns a three-way between the Master and two gals. Sometimes the camera catches glimpses of crotch hair during an interracial seduction. Later, Natara performs the equivalent of a lap dance for the leading man. One scene set in the woods with hippies who cavort in the buff provides glimpses of beans and franks. Occasionally, the nude women appear only in the warped imagination of the hero who masturbates in front of a full-length mirror in his khaki uniform and his hands grappling with his out-of-sight genitalia.
The depressing ending and the sloppy editing leave a sour taste in your mouth. The Master (one-time only actor Mike Atkinson) conducts a master/slave relationship with his swarthy assistant, Brother (Jonathan Manos), who enters the hustle and bustle of New York City to search for suitable women to shoot with his video camera. Indeed, the Master has an elaborate computer with a monitor and communicates with Brother by means of wireless technology. Primarily, the Master either yells at Brother to follow the women and get closer to them or he narrates the images with his deranged thoughts. Brother totes around a portable camera that looks very phallic. Actually, it resembles a cross-between of a hair-dryer and a science fiction ray pistol. Brother struggles to keep the camera hidden. At one point, he sneaks up the fire escape to shoot into a woman's bathroom. Some of the images that he transmits back to the Master could never have been taken without alerting the woman to his presence. The question arises then about how much of the shower scene exists in the mind of the protagonist. Nevertheless, Mathew Lawrence's photography and the enjoyable jazz score by The Fludd partially compensate for those shortcomings.
Altogether, "The Electronic Lover" would appeal more to scholars involved in pornographic studies and cultural analysts who are tracing the emergence of home surveillance video technology than those who want to cut a wad.
The depressing ending and the sloppy editing leave a sour taste in your mouth. The Master (one-time only actor Mike Atkinson) conducts a master/slave relationship with his swarthy assistant, Brother (Jonathan Manos), who enters the hustle and bustle of New York City to search for suitable women to shoot with his video camera. Indeed, the Master has an elaborate computer with a monitor and communicates with Brother by means of wireless technology. Primarily, the Master either yells at Brother to follow the women and get closer to them or he narrates the images with his deranged thoughts. Brother totes around a portable camera that looks very phallic. Actually, it resembles a cross-between of a hair-dryer and a science fiction ray pistol. Brother struggles to keep the camera hidden. At one point, he sneaks up the fire escape to shoot into a woman's bathroom. Some of the images that he transmits back to the Master could never have been taken without alerting the woman to his presence. The question arises then about how much of the shower scene exists in the mind of the protagonist. Nevertheless, Mathew Lawrence's photography and the enjoyable jazz score by The Fludd partially compensate for those shortcomings.
Altogether, "The Electronic Lover" would appeal more to scholars involved in pornographic studies and cultural analysts who are tracing the emergence of home surveillance video technology than those who want to cut a wad.
