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Temptation of the Gypsies: The Baron's Lover
Rating: 2 Stars
Produced, written, and directed by Csaba Borbély. Videography by Zsolt Tesz& agrave;ni. Edited by Gabriel. Starring Ricardo Neston, Roberto Giorgio, Julian Vincenzo, Claudio Antonelli, Gino Francesco, David Moretti, Renato Bellagio, Ray Phillips, Rico Clayton, Soto Donovan, Ted Colunga, and Carlos Baxter.
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The Hungarian Gypsies who populate this Csaba Borbély epic are lazy, mendacious, horny, boisterous, folksy, and frequently plastered. They wear beribboned black fedoras, flowered shirts with puffed sleeves, and fringe-bordered sashes tied around their waists at rakish angles. The long-stemmed pipes they smoke can, in a pinch, serve as swagger sticks. Every so often they get irresistible urges to break into dance steps or yank down their trousers and fuck. Their folk-dance regimen involves clapping of hands, waving of arms, slapping of thighs, exuberant hops in the air, and cries of "Hoy! Hoy!" Their colorful flailings make the fringe on their sashes jiggle and swish. Sometimes they jump over jugs. They have a privileged relationship with livestock, which they often swipe from one another.

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Out of this cartoon travesty of Roma culture, Temptation of the Gypsies spins a tale of rivalry between Gypsy baron Julian Vincenzo's chief manservant (Roberto Giorgio) and the baron's new favorite (Ricardo Neston). While Giorgio dutifully services Vincenzo by the manor-house driveway, the master throws sidelong glances at Neston, who is scrubbing the baronial carriage nearby, and gets off by imagining the svelte young man dancing naked with an upthrust erection. Later, when the baron catches Neston napping on the job ("What are you doing, you filthy Gypsy?"), the hireling has to submit to three-way sex with his boss and fellow servant Carlos Baxter. Jealous, Giorgio tries to sabotage the competition by means of drugged brandy.

The five sex episodes produce recurrent waves of heat, especially during a foursome brought on by doctored booze, but they're marred by the stasis peculiar to Csaba Borbély productions-- numbing repetitive motion, then a jump cut to repetitive motion in a new position. A few of these largely Eastern European models might have Gypsy ancestry, but they're no more convincing as Gypsies than they were as Arabs-- or whatever the hell they were supposed to be-- in Borbély's recent Lovers of Arabia trilogy. (Some of their Gypsy moustaches might have been drawn on with eyeliner.) But they do appear to have fun embodying ethnic stereotypes. The result may be crass, but at least it's lively. Unfortunately, everyone seems to enjoy the dancing and yelling far more than the sex.