Review of Last Tango in Paris (1972) by Ramesh . — 21 May 2008

This movie is a big MEEEEEEEEEEEEHHHH for me. Maybe the historic significance or the cultural relevance is lost on me, but to me it just seems like a pretentious overrated trash that started the downward spiral of Bertolucci's career.

I get the whole naturalistic human emotion character study bullshit, the controversy of the butter in the ass OH NOES sex scenes and the Brando's "HAY I AM DEPRESSED" performance, but they all just don't work together to make a convincing film for me. The acting is great and the music is noteworthy but everything else is mediocre at best. Bertolucci basically took many themes and plot lines he explored in his previous brilliant films and rehashed the whole idea of exploring the despair and circular nature of abuse of a specific person's life. While the movie is beautifully shot and lot of people credit the cinematography as one of the endearing aspects of the film, I personally think it's a step backwards for Bertolucci when compared to his other classics such as, The Conformist.

Also a lot of times the way Bertolucci tried to get the theme of the movie across symbolically felt very pedestrian to me. For example he used the empty apartment room to signify the emptiness of the characters relationship. As if the audience did not get the point already, he does a lot of lingering wide shots of the empty apartment to show the desolated setting to signify the empty and superficial relationship the main characters are sharing. He did this so often that I just wanted to yell "WE GET IT, THE CHARACTERS ARE JUST USING EACH OTHER AND ARE LONELY EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE HUMPING EACH OTHER ALL OVER THE FLOOR.".

So yeah, fuck Last Tango In Paris. It's not as bad as The Dreamers (which is borderline pornographic with MTV directing) but this is a textbook example of an overrated film.