Overview: After finishing his studies in Switzerland, the shy and innocent Stefano (Jacques Perrin, Girl with a Suitcase) decides to become a priest. His father, Leonardo (Alain Cuny, La Dolce Vita), a rich publishing magnate, disapproves: he wants his son to take over his empire someday. When he invites Stefano on a yacht trip together with his mistress (Rosanna Schiaffino), Leonardo’s intention is not to reconcile with his son.

Pleasure under the burning sun takes on sinister undertones in this haunting tale of a cruel father determined to tempt his son into relinquishing his spiritual ambitions.

With ice-cold New Wave stylings and sharp dialogue, director Mauro Bolognini (Il Bell’Antonio) crafts an unsparing critique of Italy’s nascent consumerist society.

Blu-ray Verdict: Here within the brilliant La corruzione, Stefano is a young man leaving school with a regular diploma, the only son and heir of a wealthy publishing business in Milan, but he has no mother. She is chronically ill lying in hospital, and his father doesn’t want to see her. He confesses he started hating her when they married. Stefano decides for a different course of life than the father’s wealth and success and decides to become a priest.

The father doesn’t object but brings his son out on a yachting tour to the islands without telling him that his mistress is following them on board. We soon understand that the father’s intention is to let his mistress seduce his son, to make him enter another state of mind, which she does. He tries to escape but fails, the father brings him back to Milan where he has a traumatic experience at the father’s business, which leaves him devastated.

We never learn if Stefano really entered the monastery or if he continued the relationship with the mistress, but we do learn that he saw through all the hollowness of his father’s career and was thoroughly disgusted, as if another opportunity for him could be to throw himself out of the window of his father’s office.

The acting is splendid, the psychological battle over the son’s soul between father and son is brilliantly exposed, while the mistress’ character totally void of morals is more plain and superficial. It’s a rather morose film of a fine son being totally disillusioned about his own father, and no women can help him, least of all his hypochondriac mother, so maybe he really should enter that monastery and have done with it all. [C.C.]

Bonus Features:
2K restoration
Uncompressed mono PCM audio
New interview with critic and programmer Adrian Wootton
Archival interview with producers Alfredo Bini and Manolo Bolognini
Newly improved English subtitle translation
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow
Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by film scholar Marco Natoli
Limited edition of 3000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings

Official Purchase Link

www.radiancefilms.co.uk