Rating of
3/4
Perversely Beautiful, but at what Cost?
SIngli6 - wrote on 05/06/13
There's much to admire about this progenitor of the 'Euroshlock' genre, with its lovely, musky oil-painting look and emotionally raw screenplay. Its frank depiction of a sordid sex affair (to call it a 'love affair' would be a bit of a stretch) between middle-aged Marlon Brando (who gives quite possibly his greatest performance ever here) and young Maria Schneider is contrasted with a grand, operatic presentation that mockingly frames the whole situation as romantic. The film presents a paradox with the allure of its affair versus the repugnance of it. It is an electrifying paradox, though a little nauseating. Indeed, Last Tango revels in bodily fluids and primitive ideas of sexual consent, and viewers should be warned that a particularly unpleasant sexual encounter involving butter may have been performed without the full consent of Schneider. The rape is simulated, but the manner in which the scene was shot took a significant psychological toll on young Maria that could have easily been avoided if Bertolucci - and to a lesser extent Brando, who also confessed to feeling violated performing the scene - had tried to be a professional. As such, the film could be argued to be objectively immoral as it features the actual sexual assault of an actress, which perhaps should disqualify it from cinema discourse and classification. Art made by people of dubious repute is one thing, but this is one step removed from a snuff film.
But whether it should exist or not is not really relevant anymore. It does exist, it is welcomed into the world's grand cinematic canon, and it is good. But it isn't that good, and unless you have a true, burning desire to see it, it's really not something I can in good consciousness recommend.
