Cristi_Ciopron
Few of Brass's actresses look ideally, they often have quite objectionable features, so it was all the more his achievement to create and maintain on sets an atmosphere of authentic desire, lust and appeal ;because in Brass' outings there's not only realism, irony, satire, though that's plenty of –but there is also poetry and adulation—his actresses are feasted, celebrated as sex symbols. His is not the unashamed cheap porn, but pornography deftly turned into exploratory poetry.If it's porn nonetheless, it's an inspired porn. Hence the jubilating vigor. Stefania, Serena, Deborah, Anna, his best actresses—none of them looks like an ideal model, etc.. And if it's not the shape (as with Deborah, Serena and, to a certain degree, Stefania) ,it's the age (as with Anna). And hence the really homely charm. Moreover, it's a different approach, another kind of beauty (in time and … space) than the one presently current in Hollywoodian popular culture. See Mme. Antonelli (not a Brass actress, but highly typical for the Italian appeal of the '70s). It's another notion of the feminine beauty. There is nothing ostentatious in this; they are simply real life women. Drew Barrymore would make today a delicious Brass actress.A handsome huge youngish female like Grandi masturbating is a nice thing to behold in a movie . It's good the document was issued; the way Mme. Grandi came to look, I do not believe she will be anymore required to undress in any movie she might make.In '96,in Ninfa Plebea ,Mme. Sandrelli could still successfully undress—at 50 yrs., and 13 yrs. after The Key. Not so with Mme. Grandi, who around being 35 yrs. quit the undressing department; while Mme. Caprioglio quit even faster, before turning 30.Before Mme. Sandrelli naturally, spontaneously took over in '96 as my cult—actress, Mme. Grandi fulfilled this function in my adolescence. In GIULIA, she was even more beautiful, desirable and fresh than in this Brass outing.A Brass trope is the realistic depiction of women masturbating—the deft Grandi makes it in MIRANDA (though heartily assisted by an oldster); Mme. Sandrelli makes it; also Vassilissa (to complete her husband's work …);I do not remember La Galiena masturbating in SENSO …,nor Mme. Caprioglio in PAPRIKA (it would have been somewhat out of place for a happy, con-sentient prostitute to masturbate). The feminine masturbation is of course as pragmatic as it gets—it's related to an oldster's failings (Sandrelli's husband's hurry, Grandi's lover's cautions);only La Vassilissa needs to finish a young man's work.The women's intimacy—women masturbating, urinating—it's Brass' universe.Throughout his career, Brass made some bourgeois dramas (The Key; The Voyeur; Senso '45—who is also a sentimental quote of his own Nazi drama Salon Kitty ,1976); a wild romp picaresque whorehouse comedy (Paprika);and a pagan countryside idyll, spiced with scabrous, scatological and phallic--Miranda. As comic, Miranda is more generous and friendly than Paprika; it's also quite rough, due to its subject, the world it describes. There are elements not so much of comedy, but of satire, irony, sarcasm, sometimes aggressive, in most of Brass' movies. Miranda is as close as he comes to the idyll. (Andrea Bianchi made in '87 a movie which was both a picaresque tale and an idyll—the beautiful, exquisite, delicious The Seduction of Angela).Paprika was a tale of brothel initiation; The Key was a story of adultery , cheating and pleasure initiation;SENSO '45 was again a story of adultery initiation ,flesh joys, and how idyll is a farce and a woman's love is mercilessly deceived; Miranda plays as a tale of anal initiation. (And how the lesser males' desire is finally generously rewarded).In Brass' cinema, MIRANDA is among the most atmospheric and pagan—like THE KEY and THE VOYEUR, and maybe better ,as atmosphere, than the last of these. The brothel; the bourgeois family; the independent, hedonist adventuress; this is Brass' universe of pleasure.Verhaeren wrote a sensual poem called 'Praise to the human body', about the womanly body. It reminds me of the homely warmth of some of Brass' best movies. (Brass, needless to say, is sometimes cold and distant and clinical; sometimes not.)Did Brass ever directed a movie about joy, about happiness? THE KEY is partly, and sometimes, about joy; yet about a sickly, or illicit, or hurried one. SENSO … is a melodrama, it ends with treason, tearing, humiliation. PAPRIKA could have been about joy—i.e., joy in depravity; I think it is not. MIRANDA is as close as Brass ever came to a movie about joy, about happiness. It's his movie about truly hedonist beings. I think this is the movie's significance within Brass' cinema. Stefania, Anna were sensuous midwives. THE VOYEUR is maybe Brass' only major movie made from a man's perspective. MIRANDA is the movie about a plenary happy woman. It's also, like THE KEY and PAPRIKA, very realist.Miranda is a hedonist adventuress, youngish and dashingly good—looking, uninhibited, egoist, earthly, wild, energetic, fully happy, strong, healthy, insubordinate.(For instance, and as a not anymore private fantasy, Mrs. Palin is a Brass woman—in fact, she could have been—one would like to feel her thighs, etc..)
Scarecrow-88
Tinto Brass erotic dramedy which, I felt, embraces the joys of sex as Serena Grandi gleefully portrays Miranda, a sexually adventurous war widow, operating a café/bar in a little village with a lush countryside as a beautiful back drop to the film's seedy leanings. I can't recall a camera embellishing the female vagina as much as Tinto's lens hones in on Grandi's. Didn't care for the arm pit hair, but I chalked that up to realism. Various men Grandi's Miranda has bedded wish for hand in marriage yet she's having too much fun screwing to actually take those longings from her suitors seriously. I don't think there's an angle Tinto Brass doesn't try in capturing Grandi's crotch in all it's hairy glory. There's a whimsical score to the film which I feel also captures the spirited joy Brass had behind this film's merry naughtiness. Lots of sex and perversion. To give you a taste of what this film is like..there's a scene between Miranda and her pal(..who lost her husband to the war, also)where they interpret what men's asses look like behind their swimming trunks..and Tinto Brass being the provocateur that he is, shows us.I must admit, though, that after looking at a vagina long enough, it was growing a bit tiresome, but I do realize that the director was operating without restraint showing the aspects of woman..the curvaceous Grandi in this case..he enjoys, spreading his love to us.
hawley griffin
Ah, the mature Tinto Brass! After twenty odd years of trying to make difficult, compelling and erotic films, of seeing his work cut to shreds by clumsier, less artistic hands, of working on huge sets with vast unweildy international casts and of the insufferable dictation of linear narrative and intelligible dialogue enough was enough. From now on it would be back to basics, back to his first love. From now on all of his films would be about women with fat arses. Like Walerian Boroczyk or Russ Meyer ( albeit a Russ Meyer who is a foot shorter and facing the wrong way ) Brass' chief concern is the capture of the female form, as often as possible and from suprisingly intrusive angles. To this end he has established a series of erotic props, his own sexual shorthand. There will always be an oval mirror over any bed, there will invariably be a camp dancing sequence during which the heroine will feel compelled to flash her baggy french knickers. There will be a dream sequence, usually on a beach and usually as a tribute to Fellini, and every time a character goes to the cinema it will be to see another Tinto Brass film. And finally, and perhaps most importantly for Tinto, any woman, no matter what the circumstances and appropos of nothing must be allowed to urinate as and when she pleases, preferably backlit and preferably in public. This is the plot of Miranda. Not in essence, this is not a thumbnail sketch or a five word pitch. THIS IS ALL THAT HAPPENS:Miranda ( Serena Grandi ) the landlady of an Italian taverna has to choose between three men: a rich pensioner, an aggressive GI or the lowly waiter who carries a torch for her. Guess which one she goes for!
