Monamour (2006)

Of course, Marta is very much in love with her husband. She simply needs something he either can't give her or does not realize that she desperately wants. The film does not clarify which one is it, but it feels like it is the former. At least this is the impression I got from the rather intense sequence in which Marta, the Frenchman and his friend meet in a hotel somewhere in the city of Mantua.

Meanwhile, Marta's husband discovers a secret diary in which she has been documenting her frustration. Surprised and angered by her writings, he decides to teach her a lesson she won't forget – but she ends up liking it.

I've come to realize that the overwhelming majority of the people who loathe Italian director Tinto Brass because they are convinced that he is a pornographer are not familiar with his body of work. How do I know? When these people speak they always refer to Brass' infamous Caligula, a highly disturbing film that is difficult to like but, in my opinion, impossible not to admire (even with Bob Guccione's contribution). There is a little bit of explicit sex in it and in their minds explicit sex is synonymous with pornography, which makes Brass a pornographer. Nothing could be further from the truth, but if you are convinced that I am wrong, then stop reading and move on. Monamour is not for you.

Monamour is not one of Brass' best films, but it is far from being the disaster some critics claim it is. It falls somewhere between Fermo posta Tinto Brass and Fallo!, both of which are better polished and ultimately far more elegant films. Perhaps because it was shot in HD, Monamour occasionally looks like an amateur film full of surprisingly good looking amateur actors who were simply happy to improvise in front of the camera.

The script is rather weak. Aside from one quite hilarious conversation between Marta and one of her best friends (Nela Lucic), the rest of the film is basically a series of mostly flavorless erotic scenes in which Brass uses old tricks – the mandatory massive mirrors with the floating asses, the raunchy dream sequences where the main protagonists would typically experiment, etc. – to spice up the story.

The stunningly beautiful Anna Jimskaia also does not look Italian at all, yet in the film it is repeatedly made clear that her character is a Venetian girl. I doubt most male viewers would care, but this is only one of many such issues that make the film look amateurish.

Lastly, a few of the color and light manipulations in Monamour are surprisingly extreme. The dream sequences and memory flashbacks, in particular, look very rough, making it perfectly clear that Brass is most effective when he shoots period films.

Note: In 2006, Monamour was screened at Cannes Film Market.