The Vacation -la Vacanza- - Tinto Brass 1971 -s... -

If you would like to explore this era further, let me know if you want to look into between Vanessa Redgrave and Franco Nero, or explore more of Tinto Brass's pre-1975 experimental filmography . Share public link

La Vacanza brought together a stellar international team, elevating it from a standard art-house feature into a masterclass of 1971 European cinema. Vacation (1971) - IMDb

In recent years, La Vacanza has begun to receive renewed attention. In 2012, the Hollywood Reel Independent Film Festival did a retrospective on Brass’s early 1960s and 1970s films, screening newly restored versions of his work. For the first time in four decades, American audiences were able to see La Vacanza with English subtitles. The film was presented as part of a career retrospective that also included Dropout , L’Urlo , and Nerosubianco .

The film follows Immacolata, played by a fiercely unglamorous Vanessa Redgrave: The Vacation -La Vacanza- - Tinto Brass 1971 -S...

, offers a hallucinatory and subversive look at the blurred lines between sanity and societal expectation. The Vacation (La Vacanza) – A Review Tinto Brass

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Upon release, La Vacanza was a critical and commercial disaster. Audiences expecting a steamy Brass melodrama were met with an art-house endurance test. Critics called it pretentious, ugly, and meandering. Brass himself would later distance himself from the film’s bleakness, pivoting toward the comedic eroticism that would define his brand. If you would like to explore this era

It serves as a sharp condemnation of how society treats outsiders, the poor, and those deemed "mentally unfit," suggesting that the real madness lies in the rigid structures of the state. The Score:

: After escaping her family, Immacolata finds genuine human warmth only among those society deems outcasts—such as gypsies, an underwear salesman, and Osiride (Franco Nero) , a rugged, independent poacher and birdcatcher.

The film follows Immacolata (Redgrave), a woman committed to a mental asylum by a jealous Count. She is granted a one-month "vacation" to prove she can function normally. The feature would explore how the "normal" world she returns to—filled with rejection by her family, fascistic hunting lodges, and soul-crushing factory work—is depicted as far more "insane" than the asylum she left. In 2012, the Hollywood Reel Independent Film Festival

Co-written by Brass alongside Roberto Lerici and Vincenzo M. Siniscalchi, the film directly tackled how institutional power dynamics systematically subjugate anyone who refuses to conform.

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: It serves as a relentless attack on the nuclear family, the Catholic church, and psychiatric institutions.

La Vacanza is fundamentally a film about 1971—the bitter comedown after the revolutionary high of 1968. The characters are not people; they are symptoms.