In 1940s Venice, after twenty years of marriage, a Professor and his younger wife witness the passion wane. Now, all that remains is to confess the rousing thoughts to an elaborate diary hoping to break free from ties and inhibitions.

Letterboxd review
★★★½ Watched by Slig001 03 Aug 2021

Tinto Brass is probably best known for exploitation films such as Caligula and Salon Kitty, but he also made some softcore erotic films, and The Key is the first of them. The film is based on a story by Junichirō Tanizaki and depicts a four way love affair, here set in 1940 fascist Italy, just before the outbreak of World War 2. The film has some humour and absurdity to it; but it’s actually a quality film; very well made and with things to say about sex and relationships. It’s a Tinto Brass film though, so there’s plenty of nudity too. Much of it focuses on the amazingly beautiful Stefania Sandrelli, who is very well cast in the lead role. She has just the right assets for the part. The Key is very slowly paced but there’s plenty to keep the interest up – by far the most bizarre moment is a foreplay scene involving horse noises! The film seems to be something of a celebration of sex and the importance of enjoying your life, which are messages I can get behind. The Key is definitely a better film than its reputation would suggest, anyway.

2.91GB | 1h 50m | 1024×574 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/0CFE6F21CCCEB05/La.chiave.AKA.The.Key.1983.576p.BluRay.AAC.x264-HANDJOB.mkv

Language(s):Italian,English
Subtitles:English

The post Tinto Brass – La chiave AKA The Key (1983) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis:
March 1945 Asolo, Italy. Livia Mazzion, the attractive wife of a top ministry official, slips into the car of lawyer Ugo Oggiano, Livia’s admirer and her husband’s informer. Livia must reach Venice and her lover Helmut Schultz, a Wermacht lieutenant, as beautiful and accursed as a pagan god, with whom she is having a burning love affair. During the trip she relives the high points of her devastating sexual abandonment gone adrift, one that has shattered her life and her destiny, swallowing her up in the ruinous vortex of a sybaritic and bituminous Venice. The city, in the throes of the final months of the war, is rife with traffickers, officials, nabobs, military brass, sharks and adventurers of every kind. Yet a surprise awaits Livia upon her arrival in Venice, a surprise in which the heroes’ own personal defeats interweave with those public, as historical and political events now seek to settle accounts.

3.07GB | 2h 7m | 1024×576 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/B9C96D11416B395/Senso_’45_(Black_Angel)_(2002)_–_Tinto_Brass.mkv

Language(s):Italian
Subtitles:English, German (muxed)

The post Tinto Brass – Senso ’45 AKA Black Angel (2002) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Cottafavi’s adaptation of Aeschylus’ play.

Michael Billington wrote:
The Persians is the oldest surviving work of Western drama. First performed at the City Dionysia in 472 BC, The Persians takes a nuanced approach to the matter of war and conquest. It was a direct inspiration for the French national anthem, ‘La Marseillaise’. Percy Shelley’s drama Hellas was written in response to it. It’s the only play from the classical era that deals with historical events rather than mythological ones. In short, The Persians is a fascinating play and Aeschylus’ handling of war is worthy of closer inspection and analysis.

The real-life historical incident which inspired Aeschylus’ play was the Greeks’ victory over Persian forces at the Battle of Salamis in 480 BC. The Persian King Xerxes attacked the Greeks at Salamis in a sea battle because he wanted vengeance following his defeat at the earlier Battle of Marathon ten years before. Given that Aeschylus’ play was first performed just eight years later, many of the spectators in the original audience of The Persians would have either fought in the conflict or known someone who had. In summary, Aeschylus’ play focuses on the Persian court, where Xerxes’ mother, Atossa, and a chorus of old men, await news of Xerxes’ military attack. Unfortunately, when news arrives, it could hardly be worse: Xerxes’ Persian army has been annihilated by the Greeks. The ghost of Xerxes’ father, Darius, then appears, lamenting his son’s hubris (a common trope in Greek drama) in thinking he could beat the Greeks, especially when he’d already been vanquished once. The play ends with the return of Xerxes, who reproaches himself for his hubris.

Aeschylus could have written a play glorifying the Greeks’ military might and revelling in their decisive victory over the Persians. National pride must have been high among Greek subjects in the wake of Salamis. But he didn’t do that. Instead, in The Persians he offers an altogether more morally ambiguous take on the recent conflict, and – by extension – on the nature of all war. If history is written by the victors (a claim which is highly suspect in itself), then at least the victors can attempt to put themselves in the shoes of those over whom they have been victorious. Aeschylus was not just a playwright: he was a soldier as well, and had fought at the Battle of Salamis. He knew first-hand, as many Athenians did, what war was like. He may well have realised that, in the long run, there are no ultimate victors when it comes to military conquest.

It’s true that The Persians can be read as jingoistic self-congratulation – or at least, that those in the original audience, if so inclined, could have taken that reading from it. After all, the Persians are shown to have been foolhardy in thinking they could beat the mighty Greeks, and in depicting their humiliating defeat, Aeschylus reinforces the Greeks’ seeming invincibility. Xerxes is shown to be arrogant and gets a good whipping; even his own father shakes his ghostly head at his son’s silly dreams of victory against the doughty Greeks. In Greek drama, hubris such as that displayed by Xerxes is punished by nemesis, or retribution – and so it is in The Persians. The play might be interpreted, then, as a story about the jumped-up Persians getting their just deserts. But it’s more than that. Aeschylus goes to some lengths to show the suffering that war causes, and the losses suffered by the Persians in their doomed campaign. Another feature of Greek drama was the idea of catharsis, whereby the spectator was encouraged to observe the events of the drama and then reflect on his own behaviour. So we might analyse The Persians as a warning to the Greeks, too: don’t get too cocky or ambitious, or you might suffer the same fate as Xerxes and his army.

The very fact that the precise meaning of The Persians remains elusive and difficult to pin down or analyse is what makes it such a satisfying work of art. It invites different interpretations, its meaning residing in the eye of the beholder. Aeschylus offers a satisfying play because he refuses to offer us satisfyingly neat conclusions – about war, about conquest, about human nature.

1.03GB | 1h 25m | 704×512 | avi

https://nitro.download/view/013FB2EE9CE1455/Vittorio_Cottafavi_-_I_Persiani_(1975)__VO_.avi
https://nitro.download/view/64867DEAD6A4AC8/I_Persiani_(Vittorio_Cottafavi,_1975).ENG.srt

Language(s):Italian
Subtitles:English

The post Vittorio Cottafavi – I persiani (1975) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis:
Diana is a Roman wife happily married to sympathetic Paolo but she is keen on playing benign games of seduction with other men while resisting the advances of chic lingerie shop owner Silvio. She narrates her adventures to Paolo in order to stimulate their otherwise monotonous sexual life. However, under the influence of her lesbian friend Antonietta and raunchy sister Nadia, Diana starts to move the ongoings further while Paolo is still prone to believing that events narrated by her are merely fantasies.

2.06GB | 1h 36mn | 1024×576 | mkv

https://nitroflare.com/view/F4C3705271673CB/Cosi.Fan.Tutte.AKA.All.Ladies.Do.It.1992.576p.BDRip.x264-HANDJOB.mkv

Language:Italian
Subtitles:English (muxed)

The post Tinto Brass – Cosi fan tutte AKA All Ladies Do It (1992) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

R E V I E W B Y D E R E K H I L L
Director Tinto Brass is a man of big passions. His films — excluding Caligula (1980), which doesn’t really fit into his overall body of work — are filled with curvaceous women who are uninhibited and bold enough to freely express their healthy appetites for sex. Brass’ camera lovingly (and intrusively) explores the many facets of a woman’s beauty, be it physical or psychological. Brass also isn’t shy about what he likes most about a woman’s body, either — her ample backside. The bigger the better.
Although Brass would probably chuckle at the idea that his films have a strong feminist slant, Brass’ female leads are strong, independent, and almost heroic in their quests to become emancipated from their roles as housewives, concubines, or mothers. Less cartoonish than his American counterpart Russ Meyer’s heroines, Brass’ ladies actually exude a real humanity with their sensuality.

As mentioned above, Brass’ camera can be intrusive. His lens probes in and around his leads’ genitalia or backside with the finesse of an amateur gynecologist, but sometimes, as in LA CHIAVE(The Key), Brass’ imposition never once comes across as clinical or puerile. The camera may still be mischievous, but its forthrightness could also be seen as an instrument to explore the mysteries of femininity itself. If Brass (and the viewer as well) stares long enough, perhaps he’ll come a little closer to understanding the currents that truly move women. Or perhaps not.
Unlike many mainstream filmmakers who have dabbled in erotica over the last few decades (e.g. Bertolucci, Cronenberg, Kaufman, and Verhoeven) or recent art-house films that contained explicit sexuality (e.g. Baise Moi, The Idiots, The Piano Teacher, Pola X), Brass’ films are genuinely erotic and void of any kind of existential dread, violence, or moralistic endings wherein characters have to be punished for their allotted two-hours of cinematic carnality. Brass leans more toward Henry Miller than de Sade. Granted, working in Italy in the seventies and eighties allowed for greater creative freedom for Brass. But his films were nevertheless brutally shorn of their “nasty” bits when exported to other countries and frequently banned in Italy also. It seems that many people believe that erotica is only okay if it’s not erotic at all.
Based upon a novel by Japanese writer, Junichiro Tanizaki, and set in Venice during Mussolini’s fascist reign, the film centers on the relationship between an older man, Nino (played by Frank Finlay), and his much younger wife, Teresa (played by the stunning Stefania Sandrelli). Nino can’t help but notice that his wife is sexually attracted to their daughter’s fiancée (played by Brass regular Franco Branciaroli). What shocks Nino isn’t the fact that he’s jealous, but that he likes being jealous. Nino’s jealously quickly becomes the catalyst for an elaborate sex game between he and Teresa, but at what cost?
The Key is a rich film in many ways. From its elegantly low-budget period set-design to its whimsical Ennio Morricone score, it has obviously been put together with care and attention. But its greatness stems from its skillfully realized portrait of the sexual life keeping Nino and Teresa’s marriage alive. Brass’ characters are complicated, occasionally messy, and charged with enough lust to sap even the strongest of relationships, and Brass allows his characters room to explore, make mistakes, and ultimately celebrate the intricacies of their intimacy. A classic of erotic film indeed.

http://www.nitroflare.com/view/3F420DD4809C51C/La-chiave.Director.avi

Eng srt:
http://titles.box3.net/index.php?pid=subt2&p=i&rid=224363
spanish srt:
http://titles.box3.net/index.php?pid=subt2&p=i&rid=224364
no pass

The post Tinto Brass – La chiave aka The key (1983) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

The Passenger (1975) marked the end of Antonioni’s three picture deal with MGM, and simultaneously the end of his mainstream acceptance. Although revered now as one of his finest works, The Passenger had lukewarm reception at best, with most of the American critics still bitter of Antonioni’s caricaturing of American capitalism in Zabriskie Point (1969). Since those two films had been costly flops, Antonioni found himself unable to secure investors for the arthouse pictures he’d become known for. Five years past, and still not a film, until finally Antonioni settled on The Oberwald Mystery.

Like The Red Desert (1964) over fifteen years prior, this was to be yet another groundbreaking experiment with color. Rather than experiment with Technicolor, this would be an all-new experiment with the infant video photography. Rather than physically paint his sets, like he had done since Desert, he could now paint them in the camera, altering pitch and hue on the spot, with the mere turn of a dial. Antonioni championed this as the most direct way for precise personal expression, likening it to the instant colors a painter has on hand with their palette. Thus, The Oberwald Mystery (1980) would become the first feature film shot entirely on video and transferred to 35mm for theatrical exhibition.

Despite reuniting the director with Monica Vitti, The Oberwald Mystery would have far less an impact than their previous collaboration together. Auteur cinema was dead in 1980, the year of Heaven’s Gate, and filmgoers had tired especially of the esoteric cinema of Michelangelo Antonioni. Arthouse connoisseurs would find little of interest, either, since the film was a total deviation from all the principles one would expect from Antonioni. It is his first period film, his first film written by another (the esteemed Jean Cocteau), and his first film with nearly wall-to-wall dialogue. Pensive pauses or dwellings on architecture are almost nonexistent, as Antonioni instead remains faithful to Cocteau’s “L’Aigle a Deux Tetes”. Antonioni said that because this was such a stylistic experiment for him, he could only do it if it were to a work he were not subjectively tied to. One could also argue it was the only project he could get financing for, given his others were expensive and poorly received.

The Oberwald Mystery has little mystery at all, especially not the elusive openness that would define his ennui trilogy and his later MGM pictures. Don’t expect the quiet of L’Eclisse or the idle observance of Blow-up. This is a costume drama with trite, stuffy dialogue. While definitely a black sheep for Antonioni, especially since his next film, 1982’s Identification of a Woman, would mark a glorious return to form, there are still qualities which can be appreciated in the Antonioni canon. The doubling in the story, where a slain king (and husband to Vitti’s queen) manifests himself as a burglar, adds particular resonance with Antonioni’s belief that substitution can help us cope with our emotional malaise. Monica Vitti becomes a substitute for Lea Massari in L’Avventura and Jack Nicholson substitutes himself for a dead man in The Passenger. Even if they are visually dissimilar, the qualities they represent for others often makes them perfect facsimiles. The visual reincarnation of the king in Oberwald gives Vitti the power to command the throne, and ultimately face the destiny she had always willed.

The experimentation with color, of course, is another Antonioni preoccupation, and while it is far less effective here, it isn’t entirely without interest. Characters will bring in a certain hue when they enter, like the scheming Count a cold blue hue, or the minster a finance a monetary green. The metaphors are made obvious (far more than say, The Red Desert), and can be achieved easily today by just turning knobs on the bottom of your television. Still, at that time it was novel, and in ways expressive, experimenting with digital coloring techniques in a way that had never been done before. While this technology hardly caught on in mainstream filmmaking, it proves once again that Antonioni was always leading the pack, paving the way for new means of cinematic expression. He tore apart the three act structure with L’Avventura, Technicolor with The Red Desert and Oberwald makes nearly as bold an attempt.

On its own, The Oberwald Mystery is theatrical, amateur and fairly routine, which is decidedly against everything Antonioni has come to stand for. In context with Antonioni’s oeuvre, it will no doubt be remembered as his worst, too. Historically, however, it marks a time when art was out, and entertainment was out to make a buck on sure things, like franchised characters, remakes and all the other things the Lucas-Spielberg train brought. This is Antonioni’s commentary on the time, where if he couldn’t experiment narratively without intervention from the suits, then he’d try to do it cosmetically with the alteration of color. He largely failed, but he tried all the same, and this proves that even at his worst, Antonioni was and is a man who always put the art above everything else, pushing the boundaries of cinema when so many others were comfortably complacent.

http://www.nitroflare.com/view/E69C91CCB6533A2/Il.Mistero.di.Oberwald.1981.DVDRip.avi
http://www.nitroflare.com/view/B58F3DA2EDE792A/Il.Mistero.di.Oberwald.1981.DVDRip.txt

Language:Italian
Subtitles:English

The post Michelangelo Antonioni – Il Mistero di Oberwald aka The Oberwald Mystery (1981) first appeared on Cinema of the World.