Mano Destra | |
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Directed by | Cleo Uebelmann |
Written by | Cleo Uebelmann |
Starring | Cleo Uebelmann Unknown model |
Release date |
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Running time | 53 minutes |
Country | Switzerland |
Language | Italian |
Mano Destra (Italian for "right hand") is a 1986 Italian-language Swiss art film written, directed by and starring Cleo Uebelmann. In black and white, Mano Destra is a study of lesbian erotic objectification which depicts a woman tying up another woman in a lengthy act of consensual bondage.
Images from the film were later published in 1988 as part of a book, The Dominas - Mano Destra by the Cleo Uebelmann-Group.[1]
In Women and the New German Cinema, Julia Knight describes it as a film which explores the liberating possibilities of sadomasochism, subverting audience expectations of what sadomasochism is like.[2] In New Queer Cinema, B. Ruby Rich described it as "deserving of instant cult status".[3]
In The Pleasure Threshold: Looking at Lesbian Pornography on Film, Cherry Smyth states that its imagery is "beyond sex", and that "like being offered an ice-cold, luscious fruit drink on a hot day, which you are forbidden to taste, this film encapsulates desire as death, as nothingness, and yet utter completeness".[4][5]
The director Peter Strickland has cited the film as one of his sources of inspiration for his film The Duke of Burgundy.[6]
In 2018, the British Film Institute cited Mano Destra as one of the best 30 LGBT films of all time.[7]