Cosi Come Sei (aka Stay As You Are) (1978)

An architect (Marcello Mastroianni) meets a young teenage girl (Nastassja Kinski) while on a business trip to Florence. They spend the night together and a mutual attraction exists and they continue to see each other. But she may, in fact, be his daughter. Directed by Alberto Lattuada, this May-December romance has a creepy vibe. The film dances around the are they or aren't they incest theme until the film (and we) don't give a damn anymore. The film comes across as an old man's sex fantasy and the way Lattuada photographs or should I say poses Kinski in various stages of nudity, he makes leches of us all the way camera slowly leers across Kinski's body. This isn't an honest and mature "she's naked, so what?" treatment of nudity in a film but a hypocritical soft porn take passing itself off as "art". Mastroianni's wishy washy character is infuriating and one wants to scream at him, "Just spit it out and say it, man!". Naturally, we all see the inevitable end well before it arrives and when it comes accompanied by Ennio Morricone's sappy score (it's not his finest hour), all I could think of was what a pointless movie. Fortunately Mastroianni and Kinski are appealing performers which helps. With Francisco Rabal, Barbara De Rossi and Ania Pieroni.