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So much average

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

There 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.

I'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.

Some 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!

The 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.