Taking Of Christina, The Review

Initial Thoughts
Armand Weston, the man behind the subversively genius Personals (1972) and the deeply psychological and religiously inspired Defiance of Good (1974) is a director who seems incapable of making a bad film and The Taking of Christina is no exception.

The Film/Review
Upstate New York; Winter: We open with Christina sitting alone and nude on her bed. She gets up, goes to her closet, takes out a wedding veil, puts it on briefly, admiring herself in it in her mirror, then removes it and goes to take a shower. There she stands, the water pounding on her flesh, imagining having sex with fiancé, Larry.
Christina and her fiancé are next shown leaving a movie theatre where Christina works. She complains to a the snack bar vendor of the violent nature of film they’ve just seen (The Godfather II) to which her fiancé responds that violence is the in thing. They next head up to a lovers lane type area where Christina’s fiancé pleads to let him have sex with her. She denies his request, wishing to remain a virgin until they are married. He takes her home where she is greeted by her grandfather who sits in the living room polishing his shotgun.
Meanwhile Frank and Sonny, two recently released convicts heading south to Florida stop at a gas station. There while the attendant is filling their car, Frank robs the cash register in the station. However the attendant catches him and Frank quickly slashes his throat and he and Sonny speed out.
They end up at a local tavern for transients, lonely older men, and prostitutes. There they meet a prostitute named Mary Jo who they take up on a group sex offer. She and another working girl named Louise head out to a small motel room near the bar where they begin to have sex. However Frank soon becomes too brutal with the girls and is kicked out of the room.
The next night Christina stands in front of the movie theatre waiting for Larry. At the same time Frank is trying to rebuff his being rejected by the prostitutes, saying he can get any girl he wants. They drive near the theatre and Frank spots Christina. After trying to pick her up and failing to do so, he pulls her into the car, gagging and tying her up. They speed off…
The above description is of the first 25 minutes of The Taking of Christina. In the hour that follows, the film brutally and unflinchingly depicts her ordeal as kidnap victim over the course of two days.
Weston seems to have no qualms about depicting scenes of brutal violence in his films and The Taking of Christina is certainly his most violent and hardest to watch picture. Bree Anthony gives the finest performance here as Christina. She not only presents true versatility as an actress, going from a quite, unassuming theatre employee engaged to be married to her final, shocking actions at the film’s conclusion. Co-stars Eric Edwards (Sonny) and Al Levitsky (Frank) are also perfect as the two kidnappers. Levitsky, the more broodish and cruel of the two is chilling as he attempts to terrorize and manipulate Christina. Edwards too is extremely strong as the kinder and gentler one of the duo who claims he really isn’t a bad guy but just got caught up in a bad situation.
Weston skillfully crafts a part buddy film, part rape and revenge thriller, bringing in both exploitation elements and occasional moments of sentimentality and humanity. However, there is no getting around the dark and depressing nature of this film. He presents the characters of Frank as Sonny as loners looking for better lives but unable to hide from their criminal past. By presenting them as recently released criminals instead of prison escapees, Weston avoids the clichés associated with the latter types of characters.
Although neither Frank nor Sonny reveal much about themselves, they are well defined and developed through their actions and responses to each others actions. There is also something very cold and distant about how Weston presents all of the characters in this film. Also, his setting the film in a small town in the dead of winter perfectly compliments the coldness of both the situations and characters. br>The chilly compositions by cinematographer João Fernandes do a fine job in keeping the film as atmospheric as it is. He effectively uses a great many long shots and wide shots, showing the emptiness of the town in which they are in, but in doing show depicts the emptiness of the people living there.

The Taking of Christina is not the type of film which will satisfy the majority of its audiences. There is an underlying feeling of nihilism present from beginning to end. Also, many viewers are likely to be either disgusted or offended by a great deal of both the film’s violent and sexual content. However this is done with obvious intent and had the film opted to take a more sanitized Hollywood approach to its storyline, a great deal of its effectiveness would have been diminished.


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Sex, etc.
Weston has always refused to shoot sex in a traditional sex film style. Sex in included when it adds to or makes sense in the story. Therefore the sex in this film is just as depressing as the rest of the film. Weston also opts to shoot the film’s primary rape scene softcore as to not take away from its brutality by cutting to hardcore close-ups.

The Extras
VCX offers no related extras, however a nice little trailer for Any Time, Any Place can be seen after the end credits for Christina.

Cuts Warning
Here is where this otherwise fine DVD gets ruined. The film clocks in here at around 83 minutes, meaning it has lost around one minute from its original running time of 84 minutes. Compared to my 16mm print of it which is completely uncut, the film’s only edits are the removal of a close-up shot of the gas station attendant’s neck being slashed, around 30 seconds of the rape scene being removed, as well as some rather unimportant setting based dialogue. Although these edits do not destroy the overall effectiveness and impact of the film they are nevertheless a shame.

The DVD (A & V, etc.)
VCX has matered The Taking of Christina from a 3 quarter inch master tape culled from a nice looking 35mm print. The color representation is fairly good. Christina is not a very colorful film as much of it takes place in cold, wintry environments. However the well lit bar scenes are accurately represented. Detail is somewhat low, but unless this DVD is being watched on a plasma screen HD TV, it’s not going to matter much. Besides the content cuts described above, the other major flaw with this edition is the fact that the film is presented in open matte 1.33:1 when it should be matted to 1.85:1 or at least 1.66:1. This renders the compositions less than satisfying. However, because this is not a film whose main strength is photography that is not as bothersome as other releases which suffer similar incorrect masking. Besides that VCX has their bug on the very bottom of the image throughout the film, although the overscan on most TVs will cut it off. They have also stuck a VCX presents title card over the first shot of the film, but it goes away quickly and only provides a minor annoyance.

Overall
Taking of Christina is another hardcore masterpiece from the mid 70s which gets a less than perfect DVD release from a studio which doesn’t care. Worth seeing simply because of the quality of the film itself.