A.K.A.: Ultimo
tango a Parigi
Country: France
Genre(s): Drama
Director: Bernardo
Bertolucci
Cast: Marlon Brando
/ Maria Schneider / Jean-Pierre Leaud
Plot
Weary of the
superficial world around them, two lonely people begin an anonymous and
loveless sexual affair hidden away in an abandoned apartment to which they both
have a key.
What I Liked
Given its reputation
for pushing the boundaries of sex scenes in a major motion picture, “Last Tango
in Paris” is surprisingly un-erotic; and that’s clearly intentional. The scenes are shot very matter-of-factly. There’s no sexy lighting, coloring, or camera
angles, no outlandish locales, positions, or scenarios. Just very straight-forward shots of people
fucking on the floor of a mostly empty apartment. It is not the director’s intention to make
the viewer feel like a participant in the sex, nor to make him want to be. Instead the sex is presented as though it
were part of a documentary, or a medical or psychological study. So if the sex isn't used to titilate, it's used to invoke something else entirely.
More loathing than
lust, the sex here is done as part of a cycle of personal turmoil and anger in
which both participants were trapped long before they met. In the case of the female participant, Jeanne,
portrayed with finesse and believability by relative upstart Maria Schneider,
the relationship offers the closest thing to truth and honesty she knows, which
ends up being why she cannot seem to break herself of the habit. Her fiancé, obsessed with making a film and
with becoming what society expects of him, wants to make her part of his
artificial world but has no clue what she wants or who she is, nor does he
care. So she fancies herself in love
with Marlon Brando’s male lead, Paul, who really is nothing more than a lonely
misogynist. Eventually his capacity for
hate and violence destroys all that’s good in her. Sexy but vulnerable, Schneider plays this
role with the subtlety and art that co-star Brando lacks.
What I Didn’t Like
Much has been made of
Marlon Brando’s performance. Apparently
he improvised a great deal in this film, something he did with greater
frequency as he got older, more egotistical, and lazier. Brando was a magnificent, groundbreaking
actor, it’s true. But I found that in
“Last Tango in Paris” he overindulges himself in playing the depressed,
sadistic, and contempt-filled Paul. The
character has been called misogynistic, but I feel this is a misnomer. Paul hates everyone, male or female, and
Brando portrays this part well, effectively coming off as a hulking, demonic
beast, a permanent Mr. Hyde. The problem
is that the character just isn’t believable as a real human being. If you ask me, Brando may have had the more
interesting character, but it was Schneider who stole the movie from him with
her down-to-earth performance.
Beyond that, watching
two people engage in a self-destructive relationship seems to be the only point
of the film. True, it explores the
self-destructive nature of people in general, but it does so in a way that is neither
interesting or engaging. I just didn’t
feel like I had learned, gained, or enjoyed anything (aside from Schneider’s
looks) by watching this movie. Even
Paris, universally regarded as one of the most beautiful and erotic cities in
the world, is rendered lifeless and boring (intentionally) by Bertolucci.
Most Memorable Scene
The finger-in-the-ass
and the butter-rape scenes are the most notorious moments of “Last Tango in
Paris,” but for me the most interesting scenes were those Schneider shared with
Jean-Pierre Leaud in the role of her fiancé, Tom. Tom’s insistence on building a world of
lifeless artifice around himself and Jeanne and her hesitation to break out of
that mold is the cause of her obsession with being violated and degraded by
Paul. From a psychological standpoint,
the Jeanne-Tom relationship brings a depth to the film that fleshes out the
otherwise pointless victimization that goes on between Paul and Jeanne.
My Rating: 2.5 out of 5
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