MONAMOUR

MONAMOUR

It all starts off tastefully enough with classical music playing over a close-up of a famous painting. Even the Italian language opening titles lend it a touch of class.

As the music ends the camera pulls back and, crucially, we read the words "regia Tinto Brass". Ah.

So it makes perfect sense that the work of art in question is actually positioned above the headboard of married couple Dario (Max Parodi) and Marta's (Anna Jimskaia) bed, and that they are fucking energetically as the film begins proper.

But all is not well. Despite their frantic humping, Marta longs to be kissed passionately by Dario like he did when they first met. Instead, he just wants to fuck: but he even gets that wrong, and she has to retire to the bathroom afterwards to finish herself off with a tap. Later, she confides in her diary that she has not been able to orgasm with Dario since marrying him six months earlier (cue flashback). She loves him very much, but ... she's bored.

It turns out that Dario is an aspiring book publisher who has asked Marta to join him on a trip to a Literary Festival he'd been invited to. She's decided to go along in the hope of reigniting their waning sex life. Well, there's only so much wanking to filthy novels that a girl can do. Sadly, for those of us watching.

Anyhow, Dario soon realises Marta's boredom but misconstrues it as disdain with his Festival duties - and so suggests she checks out the local art gallery.

In a frilly red top that typically leaves nothing to the imagination - everything Marta wears reveals a nipple at some point - she goes to the gallery and finds it empty, save for Leon (Riccardo Marino). This horny fucker takes an instant shine to Marta and won't take no for an answer: he pursues her throughout the gallery before seducing her beneath a huge fresco of Giulio Romano's "Olympia Is Seduced By Jupiter" - a painting famous for its erect cock. Aptly enough.

As tempers boil at home and the Festival soirees become increasingly tedious, Marta begins to overcome her sense of guilt and actively sets out to find stranger Leon once again.

Is she playing a dangerous game? What odd characters will her quest for sexual gratification lead her to? What will she learn from it all, and will any of this save her marriage with Dario?

Well, answering any of the above would be telling.

But this is where the film hots up, both in terms of plot (like, one starts to form) and the sex scenes.

Okay, the latter are largely of the soft-core variety - lots of full-frontal nudity and exposed labia; a few scenes of simulated penetration and blowjobs which employ fake cocks - but a lot of it is genuinely titillating.

Brass is famous for his love of the female backside, and he exploits Jimskaia's lovely buns in almost every frame here. The camera shamelessly centres in on scenes of her bending over naked, or sitting down to use the toilet (quite a lot actually) - and it's all weirdly erotic. You've got to love the guy.

Superficial? Shallow? Pretentious in its attempts to appear as anything else other than a celebration of the female derriere? Yes. MONAMOUR is all of these things. But, embrace it as such and it can't disappoint. It's like a comedy where the punch line is the lead actress' arse - and it gets delivered with alarming frequency.

Released in 2005 when Brass was a grand 72 years of age, MON AMOUR happily shows the man's thoughts are as impure as ever as he reaches his twilight years.

Best known on British shores as the little Italian guy behind violent sexual epics such as CALIGULA (at least, the principal filming - before Bob Guccione and Giancarlo Lui stepped in during post-production to lens a clutch of additional hardcore inserts) and SALON KITTY, Brass' later work - including the likes of PAPRIKA and FRIVOLOUS LOLA during the 1990s - MONAMOUR is typical of his most recent works in that it is very budget and is obviously lacking the involvement of a Sir John Gielgud or a Helmut Berger (those days are over, Tinto mate).

But becoming the worlds classiest photographer of European bums is a fair attempt at compensation.

MONAMOUR is presented uncut in anamorphic 1.85:1 and looks good. Images are sharp, blacks are well rendered and depth is as natural as the flesh tones. Colour is slightly faded in some scenes, but this appears to be deliberate of the film's look.

Audio is provided in original Italian and English dubbed 2.0 mixes. I focused on the former, which was a reliably consistent and clean affair throughout. Optional English subtitles are easy to read and well written.

The animated main menu page makes good use of a key scene from the film, featuring Marta dancing sexily to Bo Diddley's "Mona". Shake that arse, girl!

From there, a static scene-selection menu allows access to the film via 12 chapters.

Extras begin with a nice 15-minute Making Of featurette. This looks to have been shot on digital video and offers some good footage of Brass working behind the scenes with his attractive cast - prosthetic stiffies and all. English subtitles come in handy.

An English-subtitled trailer for MON AMOUR follows, along with a 1-minute trailer for the curiously titled KICK THE COCK (another Brass effort, and one that looks decidedly cheap - but cool if you like watching a cucumber getting fellated by some buxom babe ...).

Review by Stuart Willis


 
Released by Cult Epics
Region 1 - NTSC
Not Rated
Extras :
see main review
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