When Desire Became a Diary
Released in 2006, Monamour garnered a plethora of responses as it sought to capture the multiple meanings of eroticism and passion. Considering the bulk of Tinto Brass’s work, Monamour is a gentle and self-reflective work, as opposed to many of Brass’s more self-indulgent sexually charged productions. Monamour is the work of a filmmaker exploring the edges of a distinctly emotional eroticism. More than documentary descriptions and visual explorations of the various erotic possibilities, Monamour is a confessional, exploring the inner world of a rectangular figure. There is a singular poetic passion in the film’s imaging.
Marta, played by Anna Jimskaia, is the bulk of the film. Brass’s films depict the many nuances of humanity. Contrary to many of her roles in other productions, Jimskaia in Monamour is the storyteller and the central muse of desire. The leap of creativity is for a storyteller and a heroine to embody the parts of a character suffering a psychological and emotional split. This is the first and only time a character in a Brass film is not the object of desire, but the narrator, longing and experiencing.
It is a film that intertwines and challenges the concepts of love and lust, art and intimacy, and for Anna Jimskaia, the piece also became a defining moment for her growth both as an actress and as a woman.
Marta– The Mirror of Modern Desire.
Marta wasn’t created as a fantasy figure or a ‘femme fatale’. To the contrary, she was achingly real. In her twenties, newly wed to Dario, she was a bride living in the lovely but muted town of Mantua. A woman of her time, she had the traditional promise of a life, complete with stability, affection, and respect, but she still felt a void. Dario’s love, though honest, was without the passion that was vital to her.
Everything changed for her when she met Leonardo, the charming stranger who unlocked a part of her that had long been dormant. The next sequence was not simply a tale of betrayal, but an emotional unbuttoning, as Marta freely mind through her journals and fantasies, and engaging in encounters that redefined her understanding of love.
Her transformation is one of vulnerability rather than of glamour. In her correspondence, she confesses feelings of guilt and confusion, accompanied, however, by an unfiltered life passion. It is this emotional nakedness that captivated audiences. It was this truth that Monamour made unforgettable, more than her physical exposure.
Critics of the time referred to Marta as “Tinto Brass’s most emotionally complete heroine.” She was not an idealized muse; she was a woman who had the audacity to defy societal scripts.
Anna Jimskaia’s Leap of Faith
For Anna Jimskaia, taking on Marta was a professional and deeply personal risk. Having been born in Siberia and raised within a culture heavily dominated by conservative norms, Jimskaia had to unlearn her own inhibitions in order to fully embody Marta’s liberation.
She has said in interviews Brass’s world was initially intimidating to her. He was known for celebrating the female body and for pushing his actors to absolute authenticity. Brass even asked Jimskaia to “read her own emotions like pages from a novel”, a concept he would use to help her prepare for her role. He suggested she keep a diary as Marta would have, documenting her frustrations, boredom, and unfulfilled desires.
This experience transformed how Jimskaia perceived her role. Instead of merely acting sensuality, she came to understand it as a manifestation of yearning and absence. She describes Marta acting, “Marta wasn’t about sex. She was about the silence in the relationships — the things couples don’t say, the glances they ignore.”
She prepared for the role by studying the diaries of Anaïs Nin, the French-Cuban writer who was the first to turn erotic confession into art. The influence is evident in her performance — as a live, delicate, and introspective embodiment of contradictions.
Between Camera and Confession — Life on Set
Monamour was not shot as per standard procedures of a production. Brass, who was the director, was known for fostering open and collaborative sets and for “whimsical chaos.” He frequently shot scenes with insufficient scripts, allowing actors to improvise as a means to capture authentic feelings. “Even the love scenes,” he said, “should not be choreographed as if they are mechanical.”
Crew members recalled how Anna Jimskaia and Riccardo Marino (who played her husband, Dario) would rehearse domestic scenes for hours, discussing not just the dialogue but the psychological distance between their characters.
The sequence featuring Marta’s clandestine meeting in the museum and described as filmed in a single take, became one of the most memorable moments of the film. “Walk as if no one was watching,” was the instruction given by Brass to Jimskaia. That sense of liberty, along with the soft light, shadows dancing cheekily across the face, and the faint sound of rain, created one of the most intimate moments of erotic cinema — not for what was shown but for what was felt.
The family-like quality of the atmosphere was a nice touch. Brass’s wife, Caterina Varzi, who was a co-writer of some parts of the screenplay, helped Jimskaia in the more complicated aspects of Marta so that her sexuality was not exploitative. Varzi was the one who convinced Anna to let emotions dictate the framing for Marta’s journey as a therapeutic process.
A Woman’s Story in a Man’s Genre
Monamour’s premiere attracted and fulfilled the commercial expectations associated with the work of Tinto Brass, and included a rather controversial response. Some critics wrote it off as just another erotic fantasy, but others appreciated the subversive intelligence of the film.
Yet, Marta’s story resonated most within certain audiences, particularly women. From Italy to France, various forums and fan discussions commended the film for depicting female desire unapologetically. Many audience members identified with Marta and her conflict between passion and partnership.
Marta’s diary constituted an act of self-assertion, and the film’s letter-writing motif epitomized this. It enabled the audience to mentally reconstruct erotic cinema. Instead of an exploitative prism, the diary and the film served as mirrors depicting the quiet discontent that many viewers experience in modern relationships.
For Monamour’s creators, as for many others, there was inspiration in their own lives. Brass, the artistic defiant, was always romantically inclined. He talked about emotionally defiant work and identified with Marta and Dario’s dynamic within their marriage for its intricate layers of renewal and routine.
For the role, Anna Jimskaia, incorporated self-exploration. After Monamour, she stepped away from acting to focus on writing and art and explained, “I needed to understand where Marta ended and Anna began.” She acknowledged the film for teaching her emotional honesty, extending even to her life beyond the screen.
Marta became her alter ego in a way — a woman who faces herself in both love and in loss. Fans noted this, too; Jimskaia’s responses to questions about Marta in later years at European film festivals were, “Every woman has a Marta inside her — we just choose when to listen to her.”
The Echo That Still Smolders
More than a decade on and Monamour continues to fascinate and to divide. Younger cinephiles now stream it, not drawn by the scandal, but by its sincerity. In a space overstuffed with surface eroticism, Brass’s film feels oddly timeless because it emotion instead of spectacle.
The Marta character — fragile, brave, imperfect — still stands as one of the most complex women in Tinto Brass’s filmography. And Anna Jimskaia’s performance, imbued with vulnerability and truth, made certain that Marta wasn’t just watched — she was felt.
Perhaps that is why Monamour is still getting attention. Under the sensual imagery and the murmured dialogues lies a universal story. The courage it takes to admit the existence of one’s hunger, and the price that must be paid in a world that, at best, offers misunderstood acceptance.
Monamour was not just a film for Anna, for Brass, and for the many audience members who identified with Marta’s revelations. It represented a revolution of sorts — a revolution expressed through desire and the rhythm of the beating heart.