Review of Last Tango in Paris (1972) by Ann L — 26 Aug 2007

There's something to be said about the female protagonist hanky-panking between two different types of ppl as some allegory for the two very disparate possible roads towards the same thing, absolute love. Loneliness is always some default ground zero but here, you can lift yourself outta it disparate ways... you have the young naive filmmaker who wants to shower her with flowers and affection, makes her the star of his film...but as it soon reveals, all he really wants to do is play house, play grownups which is what she poignantly calls, a rape. But she allows a different kind of rape and a literal one----coz its not that she doesnt ever wanna be told what to do. she does. but under the pretext of rolling around in shit and grime together; to begin by, what marlon brando says, "facing the butthole of fear"--------- coz it isn't til you look at the face of death together, pain and death, that anything, namely love, feels real. She keeps returning to be dragged and gagged coz because you both recognize in each other this need. love then is as simple as being willing to stick around, put up with the shit. its more genuine than someone who's lifting you up outta courtesy.

But I think she kills him in the end because he makes her too afraid, that lack of trust--- his face of desperation is too fucking much to handle, too nihilistic for her to truly believe a real communion is possible.