Review of The Conformist (1971) by Todd E — 23 Apr 2010

Bernardo Bertolucci's painted portrayal of facist Italy excercises your eyes and brain with a complex, hidden, detailed, confusing, stunning art that is purelly genuine and equally as genius. Marcello, a devout facist assasin, is sent on a mission to France to kill a man and his wife who are against facism.

Accompanied by his naive, artistically dressed wife, Marcello goes to France and meets up with his former professor and his wife, where Marcello gets off task and forgets about his mission. Half the film is flashbacks showing how Marcello grew up and became a conformist, and he is just an obscure and incredibly unlikable character.

I never rooted for him, he's mean, he's not particularly interesting, but he is very well written; Bertalucci tries to show how strange someone must be to conform willingly into facism, and the unlikable Marcello is the perfect vehicle.

Bertalucci uses humorous/dazzling visuals and the unlikable character of Marcello to show how absurd and inhuman facism is, and the ending is one of the more symbolic/hallucinative scenes I've seen in any film.

Bertalucci also weaved together a sexual and social commentary which is full of memorable characters and overdramatic acting. Vittorio Storaro's innovative cinematography is magnificently stylish and elegant with unneven camera angles and manipulation of light.

Stefania Sandrelli is glamorous and gleeful as Marcello's wife, and she makes a very definate impression with beauty, talent, and tantilizing costume design. Bertalucci uses Stefania Sandrelli and Dominique Sanda to exploit sexuality, and he succeeds just by a thread because of the oddness of their behaviors and not over-the-top nudity.

The Conformist is an adjective; near artistic perfection and an in depth look at facism, sexuality, and social innadequisies. 85/100.