The plot is very simple. In late '50s a young lady starts working as a prostitute in a brothel in order to help his boyfriend. She thinks that is the easiest way to make money. I do agree. Mr. Tinto Brass centered the view in Debora Caprioglio, who plays the roll of Paprika. Hell, she is very hot, sensual... but as nothing is perfect in her life she will go from one place to another and this is a kind of repetitive. She is filmed from every angle you can imagine. You can imagine that with the view centered on Caprioglio the other ladies are not seen in plenitude. Doesn't matter Caprioglio is the hottest woman in the movie and is a well chosen actress for the leading actress. Her performance is very good. Finally I would like to say that this movie is far from pornography. Brass actual is close to porno. But this one has a simple plot, is funny, long but could be seen. 6/10 Andrés.
Add a Review
-
Andres2429 December 2004
-
insomniac_rod21 August 2005I'm not ashamed to admit that I bought "Paprika" to see Deborah Caprioglio naked and in sex scenes. The woman has a unique beauty that makes her very attractive. What can I do about it? I liked the movie for it's content (not only sexual) after I watched it. The plot is crude but is perfectly handled and in my opinion, fits in the "art movie" department. The sad display of a woman's suffering in this situation is provoking and emotional; and a little erotism didn't hurt.
The acting is good, specially by Caprioglio. The sex scenes are steamy and justify the tone of the movie. Check out the train doggy style sex scene. Fabulous specially for Deborah's fans.
Watch this movie with low expectations and you might like it, and if you acquire the movie for the nudity and sex scenes you won't regret! But if you are looking for Tinto Brass at his best, you will also feel satisfied. -
Loosely based on John Cleland's 1748 classic novel Fanny Hill this Italian adaptation celebrates lead actress Debora Caprioglio at her peak. Set in the 50s, Debora.plays Mimma a lovestruck girl who takes up escorting to support her backstabbing fiance. Over time she learns the truth and begins her journey as a courtesan and companion.
-
rmax30482314 September 2012There have been some decent and even thoughtful movies made about hookers -- "Belle de Jour", "Never on Sunday," "Scandal," for instance -- but this isn't one of them. The screen is filled with bouncing breasts, all of them the size and shape of watermelons, hefty behinds, and hirsute pundenda, male as well as female. Only the close ups have been eliminated to protect the guilty.
Debora Caprioglio is Paprika, a hooker in modern Italy with the face of an adolescent and the body of a female specimen of Homo sapiens that has brought the concept of reproduction and nurturance to its finest degree, divine in its generosity. Here she is, with her cute little innocent face and chirrupy voice, starting out in a Roman whorehouse inhabited by cheerfully naked girls, and with walls straight out of the red light district of Pompeii. This isn't hard-core pornography but it gets just as boring just as quickly.
Paprika is coopted by a pimp who mistreats her. It's no tragedy though. She's a sassy babe and gives as good as she gets. There's not a sad moment in the film, or an enlightening one. She falls for a sailor but before the affair can develop he's off to sea, promising he'll return.
He does in fact return at the end of the movie and by this time Paprika has married an elderly Count who drops dead at once, enabling Paprika to buy her sailor the cruise boat he's always wanted.
The intent of the director, Tinto Brass, seems not to merely entertain the audience, because this is anything other than entertaining, but to keep the viewer agape in his seat at the vulgarity.
An example? An attractive and likable whore is on her death bed in the brothel. A crowd has gathered around the dying woman and someone calls for a doctor. He emerges from the crowd in his underwear and claims it's too late to help her. "I want a priest," she croaks. A priest in black underwear, wearing a crucifix around his neck, pushes his way out of the crowd and takes her confession. The moribund young woman is completely naked and uncovered on the bed, her legs spread apart. And the director places the camera between her feet an shoots upward so that the wiry curls of her pubic symphisis in prominently featured in the shot. What is the point?
A poem by Oscar Williams we read in high school drifted into my consciousness.
"What lewd, naked and revolting shape is this? A frozen oxtail in the butcher's shop. Long and lifeless upon the huge block of wood On which the ogre's ax begins chop chop."
In the end, Paprika and a friend sit on a balcony and watch the sailor's cruise boat puffing along a river or lake, enjoying themselves no end. The camera drifts over and fixes on the cold, unyielding, marmorial glutes of a nude statue -- and stays there while the end credits roll. It's a fitting conclusion. -
EFW26 September 2000The 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.
-
Highly atypical of Brass' movies, this one is a potpourri of whorehouse scenes, loosely connected.(His best movies are, on the contrary, quite unified pictures in the shape of a bourgeois or rural drama/sex satire, and rather _intimist also, exploiting the sense of intimacy, secret, privacy unveiled ,etc..)This one is more like a whorehouse almanac, with some camp Fellinian dizziness and cold vertigo. On the other hand, it represents well Brass' gynecological approach, and Mme. Caprioglio's exposed genitalia are intensely fondled a couple of times during some medical exams. PAPRIKA might also be conspicuous for a note of meanness that supplements the shameless cynicism characteristic of Brass' products. Here there is a certain meanness and aggressiveness in the satire. The paradox is the obvious injustice done to Mme. Caprioglio's breastswhile everybody in the filmher chiefs in the brothel, her uncle, etc.keep praising, touching, fondling her considerable ass, as the most exciting part of her body, it is nonetheless very evident that this place belongs to her tits. Her most extraordinary endowment, and especially at such young an age, are her tits. No one mentions them in the movie, and barely touches them .
Mme. Caprioglio illustrates Brass' view of the colossally exciting womanlike Grandi,like Vassilissa, like Koll .Brass exalts women whose sexuality and appeal are over-explicit and very tangible.
Since I was 15, Deborah is on my list of favorite softcore actresses (with Grandi, Miti, Sandrelli, Tweed, and,more newly, Sinclairthe Hungarian one).Can you believe that no one in PAPRIKA praises her tits or at least notices their size, appeal, etc.? PAPRIKA is an brothel album comprising several shameless, sulfurous ,even angry, nihilist aqua-fortes. Brass pretends it wanted it a joyful celebration, a cheerful feast.But the movie looks sometimes angry and mean,as I said.It has not the enormous beauty to be found in LA CHIAVE or MIRANDA.
Brass was usually keen in filming the masculine answer, the erection, the natural masculine reaction to physical feminine beauty. -
Here's a splendid restoration work from the original film's vaults, colorful, lavish, and always sexy, erotic, as only Brass could make movies, a bit art house, extremely stylized, over all infused of that slight sensational sophisticated comedies' feel in perfect 1930s style, yet with wildly turns into graphic and/or erotic story telling that's always (almost) been handled with the talent only Tinto Brass is capable of, and believe it or not, with again, a certain sophisticated eye capable always to 'see' beyond the nudity, and, discovering the souls of his principle cast with some outstanding expressionistic visual style of sort that has been truly Brass' trademark since the beginning of his admirable career: he can manage to make you believe the most uncomfortable circumstances photographed beautifully but also extremely realistically with vivid glares and rapid ironic smiles of provocation, and, staying yet completely free of any judgment, but again, so realistic in the representation of their own depiction, composing at the end quite the piece! Here, thanks to a simple, but clear, and, clever narrative, we have John Cleland's heroine 'Fanny Hill' who becomes a young 'Mimma' (gorgeous to look at Deborah Caprioglio) from Trieste, east of Venice, Italy, an almost under age beautiful Bambie not educated, she is initially naive, badly betrayed by an abusive boyfriend, and, she ends up having no other choice than becoming a prostitute. The film does follow her throughout her own journey and her version of the story that is taking place in prude and puritan 1950s Italy, and, in what seems to be a carefree, endless riot of an existence that does never embitter the now re-named (after a series of fun and powerful make overs) "Paprika", but, actually, she at the contrary seems to make always the best for herself, becoming quite a very sweet, but smart and very sexually skilled young lady, capable also to gain her own respect, and at the right moment also to change her faith for the best, becoming as in a fairy tale, a Countess, with yachts and marvelous huge Villa on Lake Como, while, at the same time, keeping herself intact with her good heart, as she is still managing to gain social influence, power, money (the original 18 years old heir is put back to his place right away), but also helping some ex colleagues and their lives, now harshly facing the streets, and its dangers, after the laws prohibiting brothels in Italy since after 1958, leaving all the workers to despair and apparently without a roof in the merge of worse pimps abusing them! What could have become either the same old, trite tale of the poor demoniac young prostitute, or just a trip into the mere and most exploitative depiction of all sex and morbid curiosity over the vulgar aspects of such hard life now changes drastically direction and flavor with Brass in top form taking the helm with class, also with the help of always exceptional (often Federico Fellini's co-writer, too) screen writer Bernardino Zapponi, who opts to tell the story instead like a wild comedy with great dialogs that truly feels like one of those movies released before the Hollywood code of censorship, by doing so, Brass and Zapponi leave the narration as linear as possible pushing instead the envelope over all the eccentric, and, the truly lavish visuals designed with phenomenal gusto and greatness by Academy award winners art director Bruno Cesari, and production designer Paolo Biagetti, with the help of the almost surrealistic gowns, wonderfully tailored by fantastic costume designer Jost Jakob, and, with an over all general key visual extravaganza highly accomplished with the help of a big budgeted International co-production, but, also by the exquisite use of the colorful palette offered by the sizzling cinematography put together by masters Silvano Ippoliti, and Massimo Di Venanzo. A movie i highly enjoyed watching again, and that i have appreciated being so well re-presented and restored. The supporting cast is here also another treat to look for, composed as it is, by some of the most well known cult Euro actors of the time, all wonderfully placed, composing a myriad of faces, cameos, and little yet very poignant roles, such as John Steiner, Petra Sharback, Nina Soldano, Luca Lionello, Riccardo Garrone, Valentine Demy, Andrea Aureli, Luigi Laezza, Stephane Bonnet, Stephane Ferrara, Elizabeth Kaza, Deborah Cali, Paul Muller, Martine Brochard, Luciana Cirenei, and, last but not least, Domiziano Arcangeli as 18years old Gualtiero who's brought to celebrate his birthday, in the fabulous looking brothel "Gli Specchi" in Milan, by his father, wealthy, eccentric, and wild Count Bastiano Rosasco (burly Renzo Rinaldi, an actor very dear to the late Brass) who later ends up inviting Paprika in high society, and he finally introduces her to his own family disrupted in disbelief when he decides to announce he's to marry her, apparently keeping extremely blasé about the whole social scandal. But, this will end up being at once the originally unique happy ending of a good, gorgeous, young girl who has always been thankful for what life had presented to her no matter what, smiling always like an eternal sunshine, and leaving tears and melodrama out of her (wild) path, mainly never embittered by the circumstances, as she is now rewarded by a twist of fate, when she would end up crossing the line, and by famous young prostitute of elegant brothels, we get to see her toward the end of the picture, transforming yet again and becoming a famed and respected young blue blood Italian countess. A true smash at the time of its release, very successful indeed at the International box offices of that time, this movie holds its own still very well, with its genius and crazy director, fun and light script, lavish sets, and elegant exterior work, its great technical contributions, "Paprika"certainly manages to successfully and glittering appearing almost as a brand new show, just 25 years past its original release!
-
dcarroll7411 May 2023Those of us who know who Tinto Brass is, and what he stands for, will appreciate this movie. What I didn't know was, the movie. I never heard of it untill recently (2023)
It was it's usual quirky, naked women , who cares, and couldn't give a damn what you think, which I love about this movie.. Typical of Tinto Brass.
How he got away with what he did, how he got so many women to appear naked in a movie, I'll never know. How the women said yes, is. Amazing.
I've seen many of his movies and the best part is, they were great, and never at any stage, made the actresses appear vulnerable. From what I see, all the actresses were supported and made feel safe, unlike what has and continues to happen., in a country, I cannot understand (America) people wish to still go to.
This movie was of it's era yet, it was done tastefully. Cudos to Tinto, the cast, and everyone envolved in the production.
Some will see it as a sex film, their loss. They will never understand what this movie means.
One of the best he ever made. -
tedg8 September 2009Tinto Brass has made some things worth watching in my mind. He chooses to make erotic films, which is fine by me.
I'm interested in erotic films. Naturally, they are enjoyable, the good ones that avoid the damages associated with porn. But they are something deep in us too, something having to do with performance.
In a real erotic film, you'll have an actress (at the very least an actress) who is performing as a character who is performing for us. In porn, there is no difference; in erotic art, there is. Tinto in his better works understands this, and plays with it — sometimes — in effective ways.
This film is worse in the way it works, and is better in how the story bends to the purpose. The story is about another layer of performing. Our heroine not only performs for our pleasure, but for also (as a prostitute) for a seemingly endless series of men.
So the setup is fine.
Making something that is erotic requires that the artist in charge decide what is erotic. Now that's a matter purely of style and not art. The choices he's made this time are different than the ones he's known for, though they seem superficially similar. But this woman is genuinely fat, thickwaisted. She has bad teeth and (the only thing that really matters) she carries herself gracelessly.
You'll want to pass on this one, I think.
Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life. -
DJ Inferno23 January 2002Some may call director Tinto Brass the Italian reply to Russ Meyer and indeed I really loved his trash-epic "Caligula". And even though this one is produced with an almost same expenditure, it´s pretty dull and not that spectacular at all! While Russ Meyer´s provoking with cheeky satires, his Italian colleague puts lots of nudity on a show without being really entertaining or fresh in any way! The best sequence in this film is the dinner-scene, which has got some great situational comic, the rest lies somewhere between camp and smuddle. Actually a pity in view of some quite competent persons involved in this flick: Klaus Kinski´s former darling Debora Caprioglio is giving an okay-performance, John Steiner from Ruggero Deodato´s "Cut and Run" as well as Tinto´s "Caligula" is in and Riz Ortolani, who did a great job with the outstanding "Cannibal Holocaust"-score composed some good music suited to the brothel-mood. However, they all couldn´t save the film! Thoroughly, "Paprika" is better than all those American direct-to-video-shots, but true fans of sleaze-cinema should check out Russ Meyer´s "Fanny Hill" once more!
-
lor_15 June 2023My review was written in May 1991 after a Cannes Film Festival Market screenng.
Tinto Brass' "Paprika" is a failed attempt at Italian sex comedy. The maestro's patented "Caligula" brand of gross-out is here in abundance, but where are the laughs?
Fim introduces yet another zaftig Italian actress, Debra Caprioglio. As he did five years ago with Serena Grandi in the erotic hit "Miranda", Brass the talent scout has given Capriolglio an awesome undraped showcase that should win her repeat appearances in similar roles.
Caprioglio plays Mimma, an 18-year-old beauty from Pola who goes to work for 15 days in a brothel to earn money for her boyfriend. He turns out to be two-timing her, so she stays on in Madame Colette's establishment with a new name, Paprika.
Episodic feature set in the 1950s, way too long at nearly two hours, presents in amoral fashon the cheerful lass' misadventures as she's initiated into a world of libertines, much like the heroine of a Victorian porn novel. She takes up with a violent pimp, moves to brothels in Rome and Milan, and occasionally gets gigs at private parties.
Vulgar and sexist, "Paprika" hits its low pint when hammy guest star John Steiner (as an aristocrat) invites the heroine and another prostitute to his mansion for some water sports. Brass had a similar scene in "Miranda", but here he outdoes that one for tastelessness.
Ulitmately, Paprika marries a rich count, making for a happy ending that rings false. Brass' attempt to add social significance, pinning the story's climax to a law banning brothels in Italy, is lame.
Capriglio's infectons smile an laugh bely the indigniteis she's put through here. While not hardcore pornongrapy, Brass' highly explicit closeups and the Steiner episode make "Paprika" strictly NC-17 material.
Longtime Brass collaborator Silvano Ippoliti has attractively lit colorful art deco sets, but Brass' editing is atrocious. Riz Ortolani's period score is jaunty no matter how violent the action gets, and Brass has the gall to include classic songs by Edditgh P:iaf and Leo Ferre during sex scenes.