I've become a big fan of Brazilian "pornochachada"--films that are half softcore porn and half deranged soap operas with all kinds of perverse elements and obscurely Brazilian polemics thrown in. Unfortunately, I have run out of "chadas" that are subtitled in English, so I had to watch this one in unsubtitled Portugese. I'll therefore defer to the previous reviewer as far as any plot points go.
This film might have come a little early to be considered a "pornochachada" (which are more associated with the 1980's), but it certainly greatly resembles one, and the voluptuous Helena Ramos was a fixture of the genre ("Violence and Flesh", "The Chick's Ability"). The off-the-wall plot of a lonely wife listening to her absent psychiatrist husband's sexual research tapes and being "inspired" by them sounds like a typical contrived porno scenario. And this certainly contains plenty of sex scenes as Ramos sleeps with a couple men, goes skinny-dipping and has lesbian sex with her beautiful bisexual female neighbor, services her studly Afro servant, and most perversely lets her beloved horse lick sugar off her nude body! But compared to a porno film the sex scenes are actually kind of brief and mixed in with all kinds of absurd dramatic turns and numerous longeurs of horse-back riding and disco dancing. Ramos gives a truly unhinged psychosexual performance that would frankly be way beyond the talents of your average porn actress (especially today). The most amazing scene is when she goes in the stall and starts brutally whipping her horse for no apparent reason. Her black servant tries to stop her so she whips HIM into a bloody mess. Then she strips of her clothes and has sex with him--while periodically slapping him in the face--until the whole thing culminates in a literal screaming orgasm. It's a pretty hot scene no doubt, and the sexual polemics are interesting to say the least.
I'm personally leery about making a distinction between porn and pseudo-classy "erotica", but the problem with porn is that it often degenerates into interminable scenes of mechanical copulation with absolutely nothing else of interest. That is definitely NOT true of this movie (or of pornochachada in general). I'd liken your average porn movie to a big bowl of salt, while this movie, while definitely salty, has a lot of other spices thrown in and is actually a pretty substantial--and definitely pretty tasty--dish.
