Paprika (1991)
Arrow DVD (region 2)
d. Tinto Brass; pr. Augusto Caminito; scr. Tinto Brass, Bernardino Zapponi; ph. Silvano Ippoliti; m. Riz Ortolani; ed. Tinto Brass; cast. Deborah Caprioglio, Stephane Ferrara, Martine Brochard, Stephane Bonnet, John Steiner (99 mins)
Italian director Tinto Brass is most associated with the controversies surrounding his films Salon Kitty and Caligula.
His subsequent works, however, have had little exposure outside of Europe. Nevertheless, Brass went on to develop a reputation as Europe’s premier eroticist: an unusual prospect for those only familiar with the base, grotesque sexual spectacle of his cult hits. Indeed, Brass mellowed over the years and his devout sense of the cinema of sexual / moral provocation finally yielded a series of rather light-hearted, seemingly innocuous and even joyous sex-comedies towards the end of the 1990s. In light of this progression Paprika is something of a bridging film. For it, Brass re-worked a script he had earlier written, inspired by the erotic odyssey of Fanny Hill, and used it to re-visit what he ironically considers an innocent time – the days of his youth in the 1950s before Italian government moralizing closed a flourishing brothel society. Wanting a convincing evocation of this past and a rare look into a society of women as filtered through male sexual fantasies and anxieties, Brass teamed with former Fellini-collaborator Bernardino Zapponi. Paprika became a huge hit in Italy and the fruitful collaboration between Brass and Zapponi would result in one further movie, All Ladies Do It, generally considered the director’s “fluffiest” work to date – possible because of the transitive balance of themes in Paprika.
In Italy in the 1950s a young woman (Deborah Caprioglio) ventures into a brothel hoping to become a prostitute to raise money for her boyfriend. She is befriended and instructed in the business.
Soon she has her first client, a handsome young man, and is confused when she enjoys the encounter. Thus awakened by the profession she has further episodes, both lesbian and otherwise, whilst developing a relationship with that first client. Her boyfriend, however, tries to dominate and manipulate her into surrendering her money to him. After the male brothel owner too tries to possess her, she journeys to Rome to take up work in another brothel. Now more experienced, she is also disillusioned when her latest client proves to be a relative – her uncle. When the uncle tries to blackmail her into giving him some of her money she turns to her pimps to remedy the situation. After a decadent, aristocratic party she regretfully decides she must leave again, for another brothel. Then another. At one brothel, she is contracted to be a young man’s first encounter. The young man’s father is delighted and invites her to a party at his place: he is a wealthy man and her presence does not sit well with many women there. However, soon after she restores the old man’s potency, to the cheers of his appreciative male friends, he offers to marry her. She accepts, but her thoughts turn to her first male client.
Brass uses a woman’s sexual odyssey to explore prostitution as once an ironic means of liberation: indeed, brothel society is as close to matriarchal as possible, despite the designs of the male pimps to control and exploit it.
In turn, Caprioglio achieves a freedom that is not only sexual but social and even political, whilst remaining the emblematic sexual innocent that so fascinates Brass: sexual experience is not the Experience that contaminates Innocence but rather a necessary qualification of the latter. The stigmatization of prostitution for Brass is patriarchal hypocrisy for patriarchy can only respond to it by first trying to control and exploit it for profit and then to close it down altogether. The irony is that in such a patriarchal society, women perhaps inherently find their sexuality through effectively prostituting themselves – thus Caprioglio manages to find her sense of self, her sexuality and her pride both in reaction to, and defiance of, male order: prostitution and promiscuity as subversive self-assertion. The prostitute is thus a vibrant, even catalytic force in patriarchy as Brass is intent on developing a personalized mythos of female sexuality centred on what he sees as all women’s inherently free-spirited and open adventurousness. It is this quality that attracts, fascinates and scares patriarchy into seeking to tame, control and dominate it. Indeed, this theme of “taming” would infiltrate Brass’s subsequent lighter films.
The key moment thus in Caprioglio’s self-discovery is her pleasure at her first sexual encounter as a whore. Convention decrees that prostitutes are performing a job and should not find it personally satisfying sexually.
A TRIBUTE TO DEBORAH CAPRIOGLIO:
in St. Tropez
For Brass, this convention is another self-serving patriarchal imposition and he depicts the protagonist’s love of sex and indeed her profession as a subversive challenge. Indeed, this challenge is met with the government’s decision to close the brothels – perhaps less out of stern religious morality than out of the realization that they no longer serve male needs exclusively. However, Brass is also aware of the entrapping nature of prostitution as a profession so stigmatized that it threatens to consume the women who use it as a means of self-discovery and economic independence – hence the progression in brothel visual design from an open, elegant house to an almost cage-like marketplace: from liberation to slavery as patriarchy reacts to codify, quantify and finally obliterate the challenge of a matriarchally sexual free-spirit. As usual for Brass it is possessive love that threatens to define women’s open love as transgressive and ideologically threatening. Possessiveness is a conditioning which destroys sexual love and enables commoditization. Brass is thus full of contempt for the self-serving hypocrisy he feels underlies this religious and moral imposition on social, sexual conduct and which in effect edifies taboos.
DVD DETAILS:
Vision
The widescreen letterbox transfer preserves Caprioglio’s journey as erotic self-discovery in tandem with an awareness of patriarchy’s sexual commoditization of women – a system she manipulates from within.
Thus there is variety and progression to the brothel set design, from elegant and pristine to dingy and prison-like towards the end: as what offered liberation can threaten entrapment. The colour and design sense is stunning, nicely alluding to the work of Ken Adam in Salon Kitty as the society of women also recalls Fellini’s City of Women. The cabaret number alludes to Salon Kitty and the decadent aristocrat’s party refers specifically to Pasolini’s degenerate fascists in Salo, only for Brass they are objects of ridicule, their power illusory. Isolated scenes are sexually explicit and there is a palpable sense of both the joy in sex as well as its inherent gender power dynamics – prostitution as theatre. Ironically, the abortionist’s room is the least hygienic in the film – evidence of patriarchy’s lack of concern for the consequences of their actions. There are engaging montage sequences in what is a lush film filled with ornate, often beautifully symmetrical compositions stressing mirrors especially. Paprika is one of Brass’ most stylish works with a fine sense of tableaux, spectacle and a nice evocation of period. Locations and sets are always vibrant and the characterizations make for a crucial delineation of the surrounding social strata.
Sound
The Dolby Digital mono is in original Italian language (with English subtitles). The film has a jovial sense of period music and foley effects are quite pronounced.
The dialogue is often frank about sexual matters. Brothel atmosphere is as much aural as visual in this film and there is thus much concern for character interaction and conversation within these varied brothel settings – and in one latter scene an old whore’s dialogue allows Caprioglio to sense that the profession is also a devastating form of socio-sexual conditioning. Accordingly, the assertiveness of many males carries an inherent power-seeking mentality. Ironically, the brothel community is referred to, by a whore, as a family – an ironic but rather apt metaphor. There is an energy to the sex scenes which enhances the sense of journey, but in the succession of brothels is conveyed the danger of entrapment. Silence is comparatively rare in this film, indeed functioning as an oppressive solemnity (an imposition meant to discipline the inherent chaos of human interaction). Background music thus rises and falls as a measure of joy, irony, comedy and oppression. There is much stress on tone of voice to convey passion and power and in Caprioglio’s laugh at the degenerate male aristocrat there is defiance and subversion. Indeed, Caprioglio’s opportunism and measured self-assertion is well depicted in her reactions.
Special Features
There are no special features on this DVD beyond a scene index.
