Not to be confused with Andy Warhol’s Blow Job (1963),
Alberto Cavallone’s Blow Job is a witchy Italian horror
film with a fairly meagre start that escalates into a reality transcending
experience that was influenced by Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception (1952) and the shamanistic writings of Carlos Castaneda. One similarity between both films is the titular blowjob and its
ambiguous nature. Warhol’s Blow Job is a thirty five minute still-shot
of a young man’s (DeVeren Bookwalter)
face while he is supposedly receiving fellatio, allegedly by experimental
filmmaker Willard Maas. Because the
sexual act itself takes place off camera, it is never absolutely certain if the
fellatio is legitimately happening, which along with conflicting accounts of
the filming itself adds a curious air of mystery to it.
The blowjob in Cavallone’s film only makes up a
fraction of the movie during the third act and coincides with a mescaline (the main
active hallucinogen in peyote) trip, and so the fellatio is also presented
indirectly. The mescaline aided “blowjob” sort of doubles as a gateway act to a
higher form of perception, but the fascination in this case comes more from how
the filmmakers choose to represent “suchness” or “the absolute”, the ultimate
nature of reality without reduced awareness. One of our lead characters Stefano
(Danilo Micheli) transcends reality,
under the guidance of an erotic witch Sibilla (Mirella Venturini), to take a trip through the spirit world, aka
tripping balls. It involves dancing and low budget experimental set pieces and
was more memorable than I was anticipating it to be.
