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Rating: Maria (Annie Girardot, brilliant and beautiful even when covered in abundant hair "feel how soft the fur is") is a girl, an orphan, living in a convent of nuns and is noticed by Antonio Focaccia, a miserable scoundrel living on tricks (Ugo Tognazzi, extraordinary as always).
Focaccia believes there is money to be made from this phenomenon, this freak, this ...woman monkey.
He manages to take her away and sets up an improbable circus-like show, all illegal, where she is precisely the woman monkey and "has to" act like a monkey. Swinging on a tree branch, making faces at the audience, yelling, and so on.
But Maria is a good girl, with strong principles, a hairy angel.
Focaccia, on the other hand, is heartless, unscrupulous, and intends to exploit the situation to the maximum and at any cost.
In 1964, after the Spanish trilogy, check out for example "El cochecito - the little car" (1960) a film in which a wheelchair is repossessed from a paralyzed old man, Ferreri directs one of his most wicked and grotesque films.
Even in this film, the theme is the exploitation of the weak, who in this case is also "different", taking center stage.
Human greed that devours humanity itself, destroying any form of "positive" feeling to the advantage, on the other hand, of more ignoble and aberrant atrocities.
The film, which has a light and playful tone and opens, in the opening credits, with cheerful music, a festive little march, is actually a strong punch in the stomach. And perhaps it is precisely this contrast between the structure of the film and its contents that makes the conveyed message arrive at its destination in a more "powerful" way.
You can't help but root for Maria, who represents innocence, but really, the fight is absolutely uneven, unfortunately.
You can't hate Focaccia though, because he is too far gone in his cynicism, so far that he does a 360° turn and ends up being likeable.
You cannot watch this film and remain indifferent.
You cannot not watch this film.
Masterpiece.
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