Immacolata is exploited at every turn—first as a sexual plaything for a nobleman, then as financial leverage by her family, and finally as low-wage manual labor in a textile factory. The true insanity depicted by Tinto Brass is the unrelenting machinery of capitalism that breaks down individual human dignity. 🍿 Legacy and Modern Availability
: Immacolata (Redgrave), a woman committed to an asylum by her former lover, is granted a one-month experimental "vacation" to prove she can function in society. Rejected by her family, she finds herself in a series of surreal and tragic adventures alongside a poacher named Osiride (Nero). Key Cast & Crew Vanessa Redgrave : Immacolata Meneghelli. Franco Nero : Osiride. Corin Redgrave : Gigi the Englishman. Leopoldo Trieste : The Judge. Tinto Brass : Director, Screenwriter, and Editor. Critical Recognition : It won the Pasinetti Award for Best Italian Film at the 32nd Venice International Film Festival in 1971.
Fortunately, extensive preservation efforts—including special retrospective screenings with English subtitles at festivals like the Hollywood Reel Independent Film Festival —have allowed film scholars to re-evaluate it. It serves as an essential masterpiece, proving that Tinto Brass's cinematic eye was always razor-sharp, politically charged, and profoundly ahead of its time. The Vacation -La Vacanza- - Tinto Brass 1971 -S...
Escaping her captors, Immacolata flees into the countryside. She embarks on a picaresque journey through a series of bizarre vignettes, interacting with groups deemed marginal by mainstream society.
: Brass uses fragmented editing, surrealist vignettes (like a "medieval fable" enacted mid-film), and a haunting folk-inspired soundtrack with lyrics allegedly written by actual mental institution inmates. Political Satire Immacolata is exploited at every turn—first as a
: The film serves as a scathing satire of the hypocrisy of the ruling class and the rigid structures of the church and state, which Brass portrays as more "insane" than the patients in the asylum. Notable Cast and Crew
The Vacation - La Vacanza is not a pleasant film. It is not erotic. It is not fun. But it is essential viewing for anyone who thinks they know Tinto Brass, and for anyone who wants to understand the psychic wreckage of post-1968 Europe. It is a film about the moment you realize the revolution is not coming, the summer is ending, and you are trapped in a villa with people you despise—including the person you see in the mirror. Rejected by her family, she finds herself in
Osiride, a failed revolutionary turned cynical advertising executive, spends his time baiting Sandro, a working-class anarchist. Gigliola floats between them, not as an object of desire but as a barometer of the emotional vacuum. The "vacation" becomes a sealed chamber where the three characters perform the rituals of 1960s liberation (free love, political debate, hedonism) only to discover that the ideologies are dead. The only thing left is cruelty.
But paradise is temporary. The couple is hunted down, imprisoned, and repeatedly separated. The denouement has been described as one of the most bizarre climaxes in 70s cinema: Immacolata finds work in the Count’s factory, where she leads the prostitutes there in a silent, erotic revolt, weaving cloth while experiencing a collective orgasm. When Osiride returns to save her, he is mercilessly gunned down by the police. Broken and defeated, Immacolata is dragged back to the psychiatric ward, her "vacation" officially terminated.
The film follows Immacolata, played by a fiercely unglamorous Vanessa Redgrave: