The DVD box of Severin’s release of Hanna D. The Girl from Vondel Park claims the film is now “fully restored,” which is kind of like saying one has fully restored an old pile of dog shit.  It’s something better left alone to rot and decay.  The movie, if one can call it that, is the worst kind of exploitation film in that it fails at everything it sets out to do, including the exploitation.  The nudity ranges from unappealing to revolting, the violence is laughably stupid, and the drug use is both laughably stupid and revolting.

            Hanna D. does dispense with any pretension and gets to the failed exploitation quickly enough.  There is a close-up of the titular character’s vagina less than four minutes into the film, and that’s counting the opening credits.  That’s quicker than some honest-to-goodness pornography.  This is coupled with some creepy middle-aged Italian (redundant, I know) ogling at Hanna’s privates.  Maybe there’s some kind of unholy admiration owed to a film that can make me feel like I need a shower in less time than it takes to actually take a shower.  Then again, maybe it just means I should set it on fire.

            Matters are not helped by the fact that Hanna’s frequently-naked body looks like it belongs to a twelve-year-old (though the actress playing her, Ann-Gisel Glass, was 20 at the time of the movie’s release).  The accidentally disturbing nature of these images is made more unsettling by director Rino Di Silvestro delusion that they are actually sexually stimulating.  It’s like walking into a strip club only to find the stage populated by girls that look like they belong in middle school.  Sure, you expect to see naked ladies, but not ones that skipped homeroom to be there.  What is even more anti-sexual for the viewer is that this mess of a movie follows its cast of suspiciously healthy-looking drug addicts from one random and awkward sex scene to the next with absolutely no purpose or logic.  At least in pornography that pretends to have a plot, the pizza delivery guy has sex with some female (or male, depending on what you’re into) because she ordered the “large Italian sausage.”  In Hanna D., characters can get to at least second base merely because they are within smelling distance of each other. 

            At times, the movie takes a break from its retarded ape debauchery and allows its characters to give awkwardly histrionic speeches on the nature of desire, happiness and what it means to be alive.  It’s almost as if Silvestro thought Hanna D. was a real movie or something, but only on certain days of shooting.  I could discuss the various random plot threads that the director attempts to inject into this feces-factory of a film, but they’re all equally dumb.  It’s actually kind of offensive that this thing thinks it can pass itself off as something other than exploitive nonsense.  Every unnecessary character and discarded plot is like a new lie insulting the intelligence of the viewer, taking away any possible enjoyment that exploitation might incur. 

Can you imagine?  A movie that turns an attractive woman’s naked body into something disgusting and unnatural.  It’s like a cooking show that extinguishes all hunger and thoughts of food from one’s mind; a total and utter failure.  God, I hate this movie.  Even the music is revolting.  In addition to the usual public domain generic synth tripe often heard in exploitation cinema, Hanna D. also features what sounds like a tone-deaf St. Bernard covering muzaked versions of Barbara Streisand songs.

Most of the outdoor, er, “action” takes place in broken down and crumbled industrial settings.  It’s like if, at times, the movie tries to transform itself into The Omega Man with an erection.  It seems appropriate that this film occupies the space of a seemingly post-apocalyptic Hell, as watching Hanna D. did kind of make me feel like all hope had left the world.  So yeah, this movie has that going for it.