Plot: nymphomaniac explores the sordid underbelly of Stockholm.
Anita Swedish Nymphet was one of the last directorial efforts from Swedish screenwriter Torgny Wickman. Wickman is mostly remembered for Ur Kärlekens Språk (1970), released internationally as The Language Of Love, that sparked massive protests in London upon release. Skräcken har 1000 ögon (1970), released internationally as Fear Has A 1,000 Eyes, allegedly was the first Scandinavian erotic horror movie of note. Anita - Ur En Tonårsflickas Dagbok (released internationally as Anita Swedish Nymphet, as it will be referred to hereafter) wasn’t Wickman’s first foray into sexploitation. It is, for all intents and purposes, a reimagining of his earlier Eva - den utstötta (1969), with Christina Lindberg replacing Solveig Andersson, and one of the early roles for Stellan Skarsgård.
During high school Christina Lindberg started modeling, first in bathing suit in local newspapers and later for nude pictorials with Mayfair, Lui and Playboy. She was a Penthouse Pet in 1970. In 1973 she released her photo book This Is Christina Lindberg by her photographer and soon-to-be husband Bo Sehlberg. Sehlberg refused to let her work with other photographers and forced Lindberg out of exploitation cinema. For much of the 1970s Gothenburg-born starlet Christina Lindberg was the subject of a number of mostly impoverished exploitation films awash with full frontal nudity and simulated sex. Together with Janet Ågren, and the lesser known Leena Skoog, Christina Lindberg was one of the more recognizable faces in the Scandinavian exploitation industry. A few exceptions notwithstanding Lindberg's filmography is about as nihilistic as it is depressing.
Christina debuted in the naturalistic and very matter-of-fact comedy Rötmånad (1970) (or Dog Days internationally). It was good-natured and amiable despite its nasty Darwinian streak. Things got considerably darker with Exponerad (released in the US as The Depraved) and Maid In Sweden (1971). The latter mostly resembles Anita Swedish Nymphet and the former was remade in Italy three years later as The Minor (1974) with Gloria Guida. 1973 was a career-defining year for Lindberg as she starred in both this, and the infamous rape revenge caper Thriller – En Grym Film. Thriller – En Grym Film (1973) contained hardcore porn inserts, and even an actual corpse. It sort of was a Swedish remake of Turkish revenge drama Karate Girl (1973) with Filiz Akin. As an exercise in nihilism it easily matches, if not surpasses, Niko Mastorakis’ Island Of Death (1976) and Meir Zarchi’s I Spit On Your Grave (1978) in its commitment to shock and offend as much of its viewership as possible in little under two hours.
Anita (Christina Lindberg) is a 16-year-old student and left to fend for her own in a cold, uncaring society that has written her off before she was able to make something of herself. Anita has a problem. She's a nymphomaniac, a concubine of despise. Her classmates shun her, her parents consider her a lost cause and have cut her off. When not even her family cares for her plight, no wonder then that every lowlife and degenerate in Stockholm tries to take advantage of her when the possibility arises. The only that actually goes out of their way to make Anita feel comfortable is psychology student Erik (Stellan Skarsgård). She comes knocking on Erik's door all battered, bruised, and broken. Black-eyed and with blood seeping from her lip. As they mutually engage in household chores in and around Erik’s studio apartment he takes the time to let Anita tell her story.
She has sollicited men at the local pub, the train station, the library, the art club, and in the streets. How she ended up falling in with Stockholm’s least desirable, leading to her arrest during a drugbust. In her darkest hour she threw herself at closeted lesbian social worker Agnes (Berit Agedal, as Berit Agerdal), and to make ends meet worked in a burlesque cabaret. From all this Erik concludes that Anita's rampant nymphomania must be the product from some unprocessed childhood trauma and/or neglect. Anita confides in Erik that he's one of the few to be friendly to her despite her vulnerable emotional/psychological state, and the only to never take advantage of her condition. Not even when she threw herself at him. Erik on his part figures that it's not sex what Anita has been seeking all this time, but love and human connection. The way he sees it the only way for Anita to be cured is to experience a real orgasm while being with a man that truly loves her. The morning after experiencing love (and not sex) for the first time Anita returns home to find that her parents have changed the door locks...
Whereas British, Italian, and German sex comedy starlets would typically alternate between light fare and more cynical outings, the deeper Christina Lindberg got into her career the bleaker and unpleasant her projects became. The advent and legalization of hardcore pornography in 1979 instantly made redundant the entire softcore genre and nudity-heavy variants of both comedy and horror. The increasing demand for actresses to do hardcore led to several (Paola Senatore, Lilli Carati, Ilona Staller, and Brigitte Lahaie, to name three Italian and one French example) changing careers. Stockholm never had its own regional variant of Madrid, Spain's Cine-S, the pornochanchada from São Paulo, Brazil, or the maple syrup porn from Québec, Canada. Sweden (and Finland too, for that matter) had always been very liberated compared to the rest of Europe - and thus a regular soft erotica industry made no sense. It's sad that the first victim of that was Christina Lindberg, one of Sweden's greatest sex symbols up until that point.
As unbelievable as it may sound today international English-language distributors had the gall to cut the promotional trailer in such a way to make Anita Swedish Nymphet look as an innocuous coming of age drama as Faustine and the Beautiful Summer (1972) or a general audience goofy sex comedy as Herzblatt oder Wie sag' ich's meiner Tochter? (1969). It presented itself as an exposé of something that happens to "every girl" when she reaches "a certain age." As exploitative as the Schoolgirl Report (1970) series were they never were as intentionally nasty and bleak as the average Christina Lindberg romp. Maid In Sweden (1971) pretty much suggested what Lindberg's early career was going to consist of. Christina, 23 at the time, is seldom seen smiling, always on the verge of crying - and it doesn't help one bit that every other movie she did tried to outdo the last in terms of wanton cruelty and nihilism. In that sense it's a sobering realization that Rötmånad (1970) was Christina Lindberg's finest hour, and that it was only and invariably downwards from that point going forward. While the tricks it plays may be underhanded and deplorable at least it delivers exactly what it promises.