Swept Away's story is as simple and vivid as a folk tale, or a dirty joke. Cruising the Mediterranean on her yacht, a beautiful, haughty bourgeoise (Melato) flaunts her disdain for her hulking Communist manservant (Giannini). Once they are shipwrecked on a deserted island, however, the tables turn with a vengeance. While Swept Away is often read as a wicked subversion of feminism, Wertmüller has explained that gender is simply a symbol in a fable not about the war between the sexes, but about the war between the classes. Paired by Wertmüller for the third time, Melato and Giannini spark beautifully in this anarchic, and anarchist, updating of The Taming of the Shrew.