Review of Last Tango in Paris

Bernando Bertolucci's film, 'Last Tango in Paris', was originally famous for its graphic description of anal sex. Although still unpleasant, such portrayals are less rare now than then. But in other ways too, the film still seems modern, with its multi-layered structure and post-modern self awareness (one of the subplots of the film involves some of the characters making their own film, and about themselves). This dialogue is daringly quatra-lingual: it varies between native English, native French, French English and American French (as its two protagonists, Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider, talk to each other alternately in their two languages). Brando was still pretty then, and Bertolucci spends a lot of time just letting the light fall onto his face in different ways, a technique revisited by Coppola in 'Apocalypse Now'.

But for all this, I am not so sure that this is a good film. Neither main character is very sympathetic, Brando a self-obsessed bully, while Schneider's mannequin-like qualities certainly date the film (as does the ugly jazzy score, which is not ineffective per se but which continually grates on the ear). The film as a whole is also self-obsessed, Brando has an interesting back story but the film concentrates on the sexual and frankly I just didn't care enough about their games. 'Last Tango in Paris' remains a challenging film, but its basic idea - that our true selves are laid bare in the sexual act - is (true or not) not really that cinematic. Worth watching, but not very much fun.