Wonderful Movie

Simply Perfect

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

This is a seventies film that is unsure of what it is meant to be and what it becomes as a result is probably just soft pornography(with one very unpleasant exception), mixed in with a little bit of satire, some meandering reflections on childhood, and having a muted incidental dark edge to it.The combination of sex in relationship to death however oblique was probably made controversial more by the amount of nudity on show (by the woman of course). Yet the downbeat cinematography, the sparse locations, the lack of empathetic characters make this a bleak and uninvolving film. No amount of sex or nudity makes this film interesting, despite trying its best to do so.It really is a disappointment, not a terrible film, and not a film without odd moments of humour either. The ballroom scene near the end where the films title is directly referenced is actually funny, particularly the outraged judges who are appalled by the frivolous dancing of Brando and his young partner Maria Schneider.The film does try to create a darkness which doesn't quite work. Brando's unfaithful wife is shown to have killed herself and he embarks on a very cold detached affair with Maria Schneider's character. It is exploring a very dysfunctional relationship, but because you don't really care about the characters, the darkness in the film appears as an after thought.It is a challenging role for Brando but perhaps because he can be quite a complicated and aloof actor anyway, there is simply not enough warmth in this role from him to make you care about the character.Maria Schneider unfortunately does not get much more of a role then to be completely naked. There is a side story showing her making a true life documentary with her director boyfriend. It is meant as parody, but you still don't care about her character and it further distracts from the darkness of the main plot-line.There are genuinely controversial elements today a modern audience should find very uncomfortable. One of the sex scenes which might have been seen by some as acceptable in the seventies, would almost certainly be seen as non-consensual sex and therefore rape in today's courts.Therefore this film is a extremely disappointing on a number of levels. What might have been a very interesting and truly great film is seen to condone rape because it does not challenge the man over his actions, or explore the affects on her of that rape. A far less serious disappointment is that the acting does not engage you. It's a film that is a creaky, often pretentious piece, and probably (with one nasty exception) not much more than soft pornography.

"Go get the butter".Moral of the story is, people were very easily shocked by things in the 1970's. Everyone brings up the "butter" scene from this movie, but that's only because it was one of the first mainstream movies, outside of hardcore porn, that depicted anal sex on film. So I guess that merits the X- rating it got then? Well, that same year gave us "Deliverance", which included the first man-on- man rape scene ever depicted in a mainstream movie. That got an R-rating. Is this gender bias? I digress.Last Tango in Paris is a roller-coaster, and an uneasy experience. It dances with the idea that we turn to the dark side when we grieve. Our main character fools around with a young, engaged, Parisian women, in hopes of forgetting about the suicide of his wife and dysfunction of his funeral arrangements. The more he torments himself with the thought of his wife's death, the more he becomes a sexual deviant. When he locks himself up in the apartment with his mistress, so many things start to unravel, and he plays with her heart so badly, that by the end of the picture, he chases her down, thinking that he has found new love when she is so disgusted by his behavior, that she ultimately shoots him between the legs.This is a contemporary tragedy. Pure, unadulterated Bertolucci. This is also Brando at the peak of his career, straight off of the set of The Godfather, and what we get, is one of the most dedicated, heart wrenching performances of all time. He is so broken down, it's painful to watch. It's a hard movie, but it's just really rewarding in the end.

One movie that had been on my list to watch was Last Tango in Paris. It was heavily referenced in the documentary Seduced and Abandoned where Bernado Bertolucci shares how this movie captured a side of Marlon Brando and he refused to talk to him for 7 years after that. The movie is about an American played by Marlon Brando who finds himself in Paris after the death of his wife. He seeks comfort in a French woman Jeanne (Maria Schneider). They begin a passionate affair that pushes the limits of lust and sexual ecstasy. At the time of the release this movie was given a rating of X, but seems pretty tamed in today's world. The story came from a dream that Bertolucci had about having an anonymous sexual encounter with a woman he did not know or never would know. Pretty much every man's dream, pleasurable erotic, guiltless sex. It blends the magic of the French sensuality with the aggressive American attitude. A masterful film and a classic that needs to be seen by all movie buffs.

Jeanne (Maria Schneider) is looking at renting a Paris apartment, when she gets surprised by Paul (Marlon Brando) lurking in the dark. They have uncontrollable sex without giving even their names. In fact, he refuses to allow names to be exchanged. She has a demanding filmmaker boyfriend who is constantly filming everything. Paul is a man suffering from the suicide of his wife. They find solace and escape with each other in this apartment.This starts with so much shock and awe. Their first encounter is absolutely electric. Whenever Brando is that animalistic brute, the movie gets very fascinating. Whenever the movie slows down, it meanders at times. Director Bernardo Bertolucci has produced a long movie at around 130 minutes. It could easily be trimmed to keep the tension high. As for the ending, it's rather disappointing to have Jeanne shot Paul. It feels like a cop out. As for the sexual content, it was probably very shocking at the time, and may have broken down some taboos. The sexual content is equivalent to today's more risqué but no longer shocking.