Nerosubianco

Before directing "Salon Kitty" and moving into the erotic style of film making that he is more known for director Tinto Brass made a series of movies that can only be called "pop art" (these also include "L'urlo" and "Col cuore in gola"). This one, my personal favorite, follows a beautiful young woman (Anita Sanders) who, after being dropped off in the park by what seems to be her husband (I don't speak much Italian unfortunately!), spends the day wandering the city where she is sometimes pursued by a Black man who she seems to have an interest in despite her reluctance to confront him. On her trip Brass sneaks in statements on politics, racism, hippies, sexuality, conformity and other topical subjects through the use of disjointed editing, stock footage, psychedelia, and music from the UK rock group The Freedom (not the American group of the same name) who pop in and out performing the movie's groovy score. This is certainly a movie for someone enjoying nonsensical, train-of-thought plot less counterculture type films and anyone not liking that kind of thing would probably wanna steer clear. Radley Metzger released the film in the US through his Audobon distributing group as "The Artful Penetration of Barbara". This version, in Italian language only with a small Italian TV logo in the corner, is the only copy I have ever been able to find! It unfortunately appears to be cut as some of the nudity looks trimmed and some of it is covered up with a big psychedelic swirly thing! I have seen the excellent US trailer (as "Artful...") and would love to find an English language and uncut copy!

UPDATE: An English language version is now out on DVD from Cult Epics. It appears to have been sourced from 16mm but looks decent. There is an Italian version floating around from Italian cable TV that looks a bit more sharp but, alas, there are no English subtitles. Interstingly enough, each version has 1 song that is not in the other. Also the excellent tune "Seeing Is Believing" was used only in the trailer and does not appear in any version of the film!

I usually enjoy this sort of thing, and did somewhat enjoy the other two early Tinto Brass psychedelic relics recently released to DVD, "The Howl" and "Deadly Sweet." But this is just aimless and annoying.

The non-story follows a vaguely dissatisfied, big-haired young wife (the rather grim Anita Sanders) as she wanders around London for a day, followed by an handsome black admirer (Terry Carter) whom she fantasizes about shagging but never actually does. Meanwhile, her supposed stream-of-consciousness viewpoint (a concept stretched well past the breaking point) makes room for then-typical montages of contemporary news/historic atrocity footage, plenty of body-painted naked hippies, reality-vs.-illusion nonsense, empty splitscreen/editorial flashiness, et al.

The ending is kinda cool, and I liked the way in which British rock band Freedom is woven in throughout--playing their (just OK) songs wherever our heroine goes, even from tree branches when she's in a park.

But the teasing lure of then-shocking "black on white" (the original title translation) sexual relations proves a cheat; nothing of character, story or even genuine aesthetic interest emerges; and like the worst films of the era it pretends to be making a statement about turbulent times by simply name-checking hot button issues. (Quite literally, as an occasional BBC-type disembodied voice keeps saying things like "And whot about...Martin Luther King? ...Che Guevara?...Love?...Hate?...." ad nauseum.)

As previously noted, I usually love this kind of dated counterculture obscurity. But "Nerosubianco" is one of those movies best experienced on a screen you're go-go dancing in front of, not one you're actually paying attention to. I'm glad Tinto Brass had a period of faddishly wresting with the era's radical currents before turning to stylish softcore. But this movie makes it clear he never had the intellectual or even instinctual depth to grasp any theme larger than "Oooh...she's sexy." Which theme dates back to time immemorial...but usually isn't hogtied to pretentious non-statements about the Vietnam War, miscegenation, and so forth.