Why Have None Of You Told Me About The OTHER Libertine?

There is a movie called The Libertine starring Johnny Depp in an elaborate costume with an affected accent that came out in 2004 because, here’s a depressing thought, that’s how long Johnny Depp has been doing his current schtick. So when Netflix kept recommending that I watch The Libertine I was like, “haha nice try Netflix why not recommend that I eat a salad of thumbtacks and bacon bits.” (I’m a vegetarian so I don’t eat bacon bits with my thumbtacks.)

BUT.

THERE IS ANOTHER MOVIE CALLED THE LIBERTINE.

IT HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH THE JOHNNY DEPP ONE.

AND IT. IS. PERFECT.

This Libertine was directed by Pasquale Festa Campanile. It was released in 1968 in Italy with the name La Matriarca. This is the plot synopsis, according to IMDB:

A sexy widow discovers her late husband had a secret apartment where he cheated on her. Now she decides to used [sic] the same apartment to explore her sexuality.

“Explore her sexuality” is one way to put it. Mimi (Catherine Spaak) fantasizes about her tennis instructor wearing a leopard print loincloth while cracking a whip, and then later confronts him (WITH HER BUTT) in the locker room shower. She reads a ton about sexual “perversion” and realizes she has a kink wherein all she wants to do is ride men around like they are ponies (WITH HER BUTT). Fifty Shades of Grigio, am I right???? #topical

I mean. Here’s Mimi, at her husband’s funeral:

This isn’t a movie review. I don’t care about reviewing this movie. It’s forty years old: there are probably reviews out there. This is a call for the rest of you to watch this movie, and then meet me in the Tumblr tags with screencaps and quotes and 6000 word analyses on theories of sexual exploration and also butts.

And jfc, so help me if there is another old sexy foreign movie called El Secret Window or La Petite Mortdecai that y’all aren’t telling me about.