May Morning (1970)

The rituals of the British upper classes can be as baffling and savage as any deflowering ceremony conducted out in the wild by primitive aboriginals. In May Morning (1970), Italian director Ugo Liberatore casts an outsider’s anthropological eye upon the social contract in place among swinging ’60s English intellectuals. When a devilishly angelic Italian student enrolls at Oxford College, his looks, charm, and athletic prowess curry him special favors not available to the run-of-the-mill scholar. But all special dispensations must be repaid in kind, and once the Italian visitor extends his special privileges to seducing the girlfriend of the rowing team’s captain, the dynamic is set for a brutal ceremonial payback.