Unlimitedia Sick Product of a Sick System

ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

Pluskylang Great Film overall

Ariella Broughton It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

tedg Franco and Brass, even Argento matter to me. They have intuition that inspires. Yes, they make vulgar and sometimes nonsensical films. But that is just a matter of degree compared to Hollywood fare, right?What I like about Brass isn't about the women or situations, but how he chooses to frame and light the photographs. This is related to women's fashion magazines, where we know the models are insipid beings, and the clothes bordering on the ridiculous. They simply provide a narrative vocabulary for the artist to explore and exploit.Brass does well sometimes, but he falls into a crevice when he relies on Nazi images in the context of sex. Here he reaches too far in trying to make something like "The Garden of the Finzi-Continis" with the tone of "Europa." The film here clearly reaches to an analogy of Italy as a fading sexual beauty, confused in her passions and easily seduced by fascism. This could pay off, but the filmmaker himself is seduced into making a different film — one he instinctively knows. There is a war between the film he can make and the film he wants to, but alas this war is not interesting. Nor is the woman or the Italy she represents.Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

Falconeer I was quite amazed by this passionate, old-fashioned style tragic romance. The costumes, the cinematography, Ennio Morricone's sweeping score, all come together to create an absolute classic of it's genre. Anna Galiena and Gabriel Garko are beautiful together as doomed lovers that find each other in the desperate, waning days of the second World War. Helmut Schulz, played by the impossibly sensual Garko, is a sleazy and corrupt young SS officer, addicted to gambling, women, and to other of life's excesses. His decadent lifestyle does not come cheap, and when the beautiful but lonely Livia, (in an amazingly elegant performance by the wonderful Anna Galiena) offers to financially support Helmut, the amoral man does not refuse. Director Tinto Brass photographs the present day in glorious black and white, while we see, in blazing color the erotic love affair as it unfolded, in a series of flashbacks described by Livia, while en route to Venice. "Senso 45/Black Angel" is Tinto Brass' most serious work. It seems like he wanted to create something impressive here, and he did just that. A much more accomplished film than his "Salon Kitty." Effectively capturing the decadence of Fascist Italy, 1945 in a dizzying orgy scene, filled with graphic and strange sexuality and drug taking, a trademark of Tinto Brass, and unforgettable images of Anna and her SS lover in desperate embraces in shadowy back alleys or sparse rooms, with rays of sunlight filtering through lace curtains. It is hard to describe the beauty and elegance of this film. For fans of erotic romance, and films that possess this specifically European style of film making, this intoxicating art-house film is certain to impress. As of yet "Black Angel" has not had a DVD release for North America, but there is a wonderful edition from the UK that offers an uncensored, widescreen version, in original Italian with English subtitles.

Cristi_Ciopron This man with lascivious ,nasty traits and libidinous habits (on screen, at least) is a cult—actor—and one of the luckiest, either—he was the man designated by Brass to hug, fondle, embrace, touch those marvelous Brass femmes fatals—in LA CHIAVE, MIRANDA, Senso '45—some of these are mythical movies ;he made a considerable gallery of men who are never no. 1, nor Des premiers, but who nonetheless manage to have a lot—by cunning, chance or by simply being there. His role in LA CHIAVE is perhaps the most sophisticated; in SENSO '45 he is a libidinous, sleazy oldster, in MIRANDA an avid redneck …. MIRANDA is a Goldonian spoof, a fabulous Goldonian parody, and Brass' intentions are obvious beginning with the place that Branciarolli's character gets in the script. Brass never pretended that his fetish hardcore (to a certain degree) actor is a handsome man, or the first choice of a woman—in LA CHIAVE, he is the much younger son—in-law and he becomes a caprice and sexual toy of his bored ,boiled by desires sexually authoritarian and emancipated mother—in—law; in SENSO '45 he is an oldie confident that craves for some sexual attentions …;in MIRANDA he is hillbilly that is accepted in Mme. Grandi's bed only after all the more interesting sexual adventures have been consummated almost under his envious ,jealous eyes. Branciarolii is,in Brass' movies, never the one who conquers or wins, but the one who is conquered or let, permitted to win ….SENSO … is THE KEY turned upside down; the mature woman, humiliated, used for else than her body, despised. The pagan celebration of earthly love turned into a farce. It's very sentimental, because Brass intended to underline his compassion for Livia Mazzoni. Brass is a feminist director; his movies celebrate the women, usually the men are the women's victims and Brass takes delight in that. Brass ' movies are a celebration of the earthly, vigorous, egoist women. There might be about love in THE VOYEUR—only perhaps—and in SENSO …; I do not know if the notion of love ,of sentimental love is ever targeted by Brass.And yes,it is a fairly fancy game imagining various women as actresses in Brass' movies.

MARIO GAUCI This is my fifth excursion in Tinto Brass territory but only the third from his (mostly) softcore entries for which he became notorious. Having seen the man in the flesh at the midnight screening of his rare pop-art thriller DEADLY SWEET (1967) during the 61st Venice Film Festival in 2004, he seemed more like a reasonably literate and genuinely larger-than-life character perennially chomping on his cigar than a dirty old man who occasionally realizes his erotic fantasies on film.Although the majority of his later films were modest exploitation stuff at best, sometimes he did seek to be taken more seriously by breaking into the mainstream and even art-house circles. The Nazisploitation epic SALON KITTY (1975) was the first of such attempts, the misconceived debacle CALIGULA (1979) was the most infamous with THE KEY (1983) being perhaps the most successful of the lot. Unfortunately, Blue Underground's 2-Disc Set of SALON KITTY has been out-of-print for some time but I do have THE KEY on VHS recorded off Italian TV.BLACK ANGEL, then, is Tinto Brass' latest bid for respectability. Based on the same source novel from which Luchino Visconti made an acclaimed movie in 1954, Brass transposes the action to the last days of WWII and, true to his nature, has the promiscuous characters indulge wholeheartedly (and explicitly, including some hardcore footage) in every sin of the flesh he can point his camera at for two hours. The major set-piece of the film is a marathon 10-minute orgy sequence which includes most of the offending footage but also quaint, risible stuff like a group of revelers marching in tow through the rooms of a château led by a naked woman proudly holding onto a huge, gold-plated phallus!For what it's worth, the plot deals with a young, blond, womanizing Nazi officer (Gabriel Garko) who sets his sights on a much older Italian aristocrat (Anna Galiena) who is only to keen to satisfy his every whim. Naturally, he is reluctant to cut down on his vices (which also include gambling) and far from happy with her overly jealous demeanor; after surprising him in bed with a much younger girl, the Italian woman eventually takes belated revenge by betraying him to his commanding officers regarding his plans for desertion. While the film as a whole is not too badly done in itself and features an Ennio Morricone score to boot, nothing especially memorable happens in it and one is hard pressed to feel sympathy for these lewd, unlikable and opportunistic characters and, consequently, the viewer's interest in the proceedings rises and sags accordingly.