All Ladies Do It

Maestro Brass is usually considered to be either most underrated or most overrated director in Italy. "All Women Do It" is his another, most successful exercise in stylish porn, with anal fetish and ridiculous morality. Not sexy, but that, kind of, is the point.Has a certain innocent charm, but then again, nothing more than just a porn film. *

Softcore trash from a master of titillation; you might say Tinto Brass is a man obsessed. Sadly, this is one of those high-class slices of erotica that turns out to cater for mankind's most base obsessions, but of course it's all okay because it's about a woman's desire rather than a man's - yeah, right. Inevitably it's a film shot via the male gaze throughout, with barely a scene going by that doesn't focus on the female figure in some respect. It's near plotless, with horrid acting and dialogue, and the lack of concrete narrative makes it an entirely boring and, indeed, repetitive watch. You know what you're here for.

I've seen most of Tinto's films and this one follows the same mold..... Wife cheating, but the husband should be understanding because she loves him. It's interesting that Tinto never has the husband respond with affairs of his own. If Pollo had told Diana it's fine we'll have an open marriage.... There are some sexy ladies at work who want my body... Would she be understanding? Claudia Koll handled her part well, but Pollo could have been better cast. Tinto's films are a step up from most soft-core.

Tinto Brass is usually referred to as either a misunderstood genius or a talentless hack. Cosi fan tutte ("All Ladies Do It") proves that he's neither one. When he doesn't take himself too seriously (which, unfortunately, he does quite often) the man is perfectly capable of creating fun, well-polished, strict entertainment. Cosi fan tutte certainly slips into the realm of pornography on occasion, but it has a sense of lightness and fun that breaks the ice and avoids real discomfort, and even, in some ways, a certain feminist sensibility (though the moral of the story shouldn't be taken as a very serious statement). It's a funny, sexy, beautifully shot erotic comedy that doesn't drag along too much and should be quite a lot of fun for open-minded couples to watch together.

Great cinema is a matter of many elements drawn from a vocabulary, formed into a great weave.

From time to time, it is enough for me to dive into a tone poem on just one element of the vocabulary. Eroticism is inherently cinematic and the other way around as well. But it seems that as much as sex is used, it rarely seems to be simply erotic. By "simple," I mean something that may not exist in the real world, that is noninvasive and nonexploitive. That has the same purity that romance has in the date movie.

...which means it has to be shaped and conveyed with cinematic quality. Some of Brass's later films do this, I think. I like "Paprika" but that's largely because of the surrounding story, I think. Brass found a woman in a pizza shop and built the movie around her. But this may be his best in terms of cinematic values.

Its not for everyone. Female fantasies of this type are connected to bodies and for mysterious reasons we're all over the place on that. But you might look at this simply for overall effect, especially how the camera is not casual, but the woman at the center is. Tat difference is part of the engineering, and notable.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.