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Director Andrzej Zulawski's adaptation of Manuela Gretkowska's controversial screenplay reaches new extremes in the depiction of brutality, explicit sex, and passion as it tells the story of an anthropology professor Michal's (Boguslaw Linda) growing obsession with a mummified shaman; spirituality; and the enigmatic, sexually voracious, violently disturbed beauty known only as "The Italian" (Iwona Petry). Along with very explicit erotic scenes, the film contains Zulawski's usual deliberate assaults on conventional morality, Catholicism, and Polish censorship -- any of which may offend certain viewers.