Monella -1998- -

Unlike many films in the erotic genre, Monella doesn’t take itself too seriously. It is widely appreciated for:

Monella is not a film for everyone. It is too vulgar for the prim, too soft for the hardcore, and too Italian for the mainstream. But for those who find its wavelength—a frequency of pure, pulsing, pink-tinged joie de vivre —it remains an indispensable, hilarious, and breathtakingly beautiful celebration of the world’s oldest game. Monella -1998-

Monella is a moving gallery dedicated to this thesis. Cinematographer Massimo Di Venanzo bathes every scene in a golden, honeyed light. The camera loves Lola—not as a passive object, but as an active, self-aware subject of her own desire. When Lola walks through the village, the camera lingers on the sway of her hips with a reverent, almost religious focus. Brass uses extreme wide-angle lenses and curious, fish-eye perspectives that mirror the distorted, fever-pitch reality of Masetto’s frustrated psyche. Unlike many films in the erotic genre, Monella

To watch a Tinto Brass film is to enter a world with its own unique visual grammar, and Monella is perhaps the purest distillation of that style. Brass is famously obsessed with the female posterior. Critics have joked that he has a fetish, but Brass himself has argued that the buttocks, more than any other body part, represent the dynamism, joy, and earthy reality of female sexuality. But for those who find its wavelength—a frequency