EFW

I put off seeing this movie for a while, but finally saw it and enjoyed it a lot one Saturday evening over a pizza. Some of the scenes are really breathtaking, great surfaces and textures, great imagination. For me the settings made the movie, the action was secondary. One limitation of standard animation, I think, is the areas of flat color and simple contrasts of light and dark. You adjust to it and move on and stop thinking about it, but when confronted with all the great variety shown in this movie, you wish the standard were higher. The figure style is disappointing, standard Disney stuff, the young woman looks like a Mulan/Pocohontas clone. The contrast between setting and figures is strange, I guess someone made a concession to market appeal. An opportunity missed.

The movie does have a plot that traces the adventures of a young prostitute. But do people really watch and rewatch this movie for its plot? I doubt it very much! The main reason to watch this movie is young Deborah Caprioglio, photographed from every angle at the peak of her voluptuous beauty. She is breathtakingly beautiful, and Tinto Brass's light-hearted eroticism found its most memorable protagonist. The actress continues to make movies, but nothing measures up to the visual impact of this film.

Giordano Bruno was an Italian philosopher who excited the rage of the Catholic Church and finished in the flames of a pyre in Campo dei Fiori in Rome on 17 February 1600. Today a statue stands in his honor in this piazza. As a very young man he entered the Dominican Order, was ordained in 1572, but within a few years was running through Europe, publishing a variety of clever and original literary, theological, and philosophical texts that made many angry. In 1591 he reached Venice, where he displeased a Mocenigo and was denounced to the Inquisition. He was sent to Rome, where he spent six years in prison before he was burned at the stake for heresy. Gian Maria Volonté, one of the great actors of the century, who appeared in such disparate films as For a Few Dollars More, The Abyss, and Il Caso Moro, stars as the sensual and highly intelligent monk. The narrative begins with Bruno's arrival in Venice, and naturally the movie compresses much and doubtless has simplified. Nonetheless the skillful evocation the character of Bruno in the Venice and Rome of the 1590s is highly enjoyable. I watch this movie three or four times a year.