The docile peplum. The brutalist peplum: simple, honest and functional. Self Conscious and detached yet ludic, rough and practical. Typical storyline, uninvolved camera that lets its subjects act and move within the frame but with a precise concatenation of shots that narrate fluidly, engaging simplicity in its mise-en-scène that's as primitive as its setting. Playful game of period dressup and monster-slaying action. Images in movement that set a wider world, one that rejects personal psychological motives and embraces the lower instincts, larger than life scenarios and ancient themes (those stolen from the epic stories peplum derives from).
Must every peplum have artifice of a highly pictorial Leone? The ecstatic spectral otherworldly images of Bava? The constant action of Corbucci? Why not a brutalist and raw piece of pure peplumness.
Must every peplum have artifice of a highly pictorial Leone? The ecstatic spectral otherworldly images of Bava? The constant action of Corbucci? Why not a brutalist and raw piece of pure peplumness.