Italian provocateur Tinto Brass is another one of those
Eastern European filmmakers ala Walerian Borowczyk who originated in the
avant-garde before making an abrupt total foray into artistic hardcore
pornography which dominated both directors’ respective careers.
In the case of Tinto Brass, the formerly
dubbed ‘Antonioni of the 70s’ finished his last real film with Vanessa Redgrave
and Franco Nero in the critically acclaimed The Vacation before making a
complete creative reversal with his unabashedly scopophilic provocateur sought
to push erotica away from its smutty origins towards something somewhat more
sophisticated. But mostly through his
movies including but not limited to his disowned Caligula to Cult Epics’
new 4K UHD release of his 1992 Italian sex-comedy All Ladies Do It starring
Claudia Koll in her screen debut, its readily apparent Tinto Brass was all
about the ass.
The ‘story’ written by Tinto Brass, Francesco Costa and
Bernardino Zapponi concerns young Roman wife Diana (perpetually scantily clad
frequently pantie-less Claudia Koll) who is happily married to her ineffectual
husband Paolo (Paolo Lanza) but as a sexually liberated woman is keen on
spicing up their love lives.
When she
isn’t fending off the reptilian advances of her elderly lingerie shop owner
Silvio (Ranzo Rinaldi) or fooling around with her lesbian friend Antonietta (Isabella
Deiana) and even sleazier sister in tow Nadia (Ornella Marcucci), Diana
ventures further into the Italian sex underworld seeking random encounters with
men (sometimes more than one partner at once) all the while maintaining the
ruse to her husband she’s just fantasizing.
Soon however, hubby inevitably finds out and their marital vows are put
to the ultimate test when he kicks her out of their house.
Porn with a plot, supposedly loosely based on Mozart’s opera
Così fan tutte with even more close-ups of exposed crotches or behinds
often of both genders than a Larry Clark or Abdellatif Kechiche film put together,
at one point Brass even shows up as a fat middle-aged customer gleefully groping
and fingering his lady in tow in plain sight.
With pictures of him on set behind the camera posited directly behind Claudia
Koll’s rear end or squeezing her boobs from behind included in the linter notes
and lobby cards reprinted for this deluxe UHD release, it doesn’t take a rocket
scientist to figure out what this guy was about.
Amazingly scored by the legendary Pino
Donaggio (how the Hell?!) and sporting decently handsome cinematography by both
Massimo Di Venanzo and Silvano Ippoliti, the openly sexually liberating netherworld
of looks and sounds a lot better than you’d expect such a plainly chauvinistic
film. The cast does a mostly good job
acting when they aren’t fucking and to her credit Claudia Koll completely
submits to being Tinto Brass’ lusty muse for good or for ill.
The
uninitiated passing by this hardcore sex comedy on the shelf are inclined to
keep on scrolling, but fans keen on whatever this guy Tinto Brass was up to
will be enamored with this release. Not
for the easily offended with lots of scenes of wrinkly old man hands groping
and squeezing young female butts but for fans of erotic cinema teetering on the
hardcore Cult Epics have delivered a strong release fans will have no qualms
about show off on their shelves.
--Andrew Kotwicki