Black Angel (2002)

Trapped in an unhappy marriage, the wife of a high ranking Fascist official starts a dangerous, self-destructive relationship with a duplicitous S.S. Officer.

Director:

Tinto Brass

Writers:

Camillo Boito (novel), Tinto Brass

Stars:

Anna Galiena, Gabriel Garko, Franco Branciaroli

1 win.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Anna Galiena	...	Livia Mazzoni
Gabriel Garko	...	Helmut
Franco Branciaroli	...	Ugo
Antonio Salines	...	Carlo
Simona Borioni	...	Elsa
Loredana Cannata	...	Ninetta / Helmut's lover
Erika Savastani	...	Emilietta
Sabrina Colle
Agostino Nani	...	Antiquario
Giulia De Gresy	...	Nude woman in theatre
Franco Barbero
Eleonora Mazzoni
Ciro Scalera
Maria Pia Colonnello
Hermann Weiskopf

Storyline

March 1945 Asolo, Italy. Livia, the attractive wife of Carlo, a top ministry official, slips into the car of lawyer Ugo, her admirer and her husband's informer. She must reach Venice and her lover Helmut, an SS lieutenant, as beautiful and accursed as a pagan god, with whom she is having a burning love affair. During the trip she relives the high points of her devastating sexual abandonment gone adrift, one that has shattered her life and her destiny, swallowing her up in the ruinous vortex of a sybaritic and bituminous Venice. The city, in the throes of the final months of the war, is rife with traffickers, officials, nabobs, military brass, sharks and adventurers of every kind. Yet a surprise awaits Livia upon her arrival in Venice, a surprise in which the heroes' own personal defeats interweave with those public, as historical and political events now seek to settle accounts.

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Plot Keywords:

male full frontal nudity | unhappy marriage | female masturbation | sex from behind | strap on dildo | 

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Taglines:

Soredemo hoshii [Japan]

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Genres:

Drama | Romance | Thriller

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Certificate:

Unrated

Did You Know?

Trivia

Only in one scene, Anna Galiena was replaced by a body double: "I had to cross a beach naked, but there were some paparazzi on a boat who are spying us. Shooting on set is one thing, to do it outdoors is different," she says.

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Goofs

In the beach hut scene the woman who takes her clothes off in front of Helmut and encourages him to follow her into the sea is a poorly chosen body double, with over-large breasts and neat sparse pubic hair, whereas the woman in the underwater scenes appears to be the real Livia with luxuriant pubic hair, neater breasts and a different pattern of moles on her left side.

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Quotes

Livia Mazzoni: Mussolini said: "The people are like women they go with the winning man"

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Connections

Version of La grande collection: Senso (1993)

User Reviews

Sex Drama in typical Brass Style

The marketing for this film refers to Tinto Brass's much earlier works, The Key, and Salon Kitty. Although Brass made many films since, this referral is entirely appropriate, as the style of Senso '45 is very much inspired by (if not derived from) these pictures, especially The Key. For the uninitiated: this is soft pornography of the classy kind.

As in both of these films, Brass sets the story during WWII. As in The Key, we have as central character a woman well past her twenties (in this case even well past her thirties) who explores her sexuality. Her lover is a blond SS officer, whose mannerisms recall the character played by Helmut Berger in Salon Kitty. Slightly unusual for Brass is to move from comedic to dramatic territory, but this shift proved useful when it came to depicting the dark and obsessive side of the central relationship.

The casting of Anna Galiena was excellent, and not just regarding her acting abilities. On the one hand, there is no credibility-stretching age gap between her and her husband (as there was between Sandrelli and Finlay in The Key). On the other, she looks fantastic for her age, even in the nude, and thus the sexual chemistry between Livia and Helmut appears quite real, despite the 20 year age gap between Galiena and Garko. Still, Gabriel Garko's SS officer leaves something to be desired, most simply put: his hair colour does. Garko's hair had been dyed straw blond, but he does not look like a blond man at all. Perhaps Italians do not have an eye for this, or, more likely, it was too late to change casting and Brass insisted on a blond SS man for this leading part, so he went ahead regardless. This bit of sacrificed realism is certainly at odds with the drama.

Details

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Release Date:

12 April 2002 (Italy)

Also Known As:

Black Angel

Box Office

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$347,548

Company Credits

Production Co:

Cine 2000, Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali (MiBAC)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

128 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1