[Swept Away by an Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August] is an original, a film unlike any other; the very length of its practically rococo title suggests that Lena Wertmüller wants us to be ready for anything. Yet it is not altogether without precedent; many of its ingredients are familiar enough. The recapture of some "state of nature" on a more or less conveniently placed desert island….

Swept Away and Antonioni's L'Avventura start out, and in a very real sense conclude, in much the same way. Both films place their protagonists by means of an opening sequence depicting a luxury yacht full of rich, bitchy, bored Italian socialites, adrift sexually and socially in the Mediterranean. (p. 49)

Wertmüller is not content merely to make a point; she is concerned to engage, to disturb, to accuse, to involve, to implicate. We can all establish our distance...