This movie is one of those classic Art House flicks with lots of skin and just enough subtext to be considered Art. As is sometimes the case, Bertolucci seems to be more interested in giving you JUST ENOUGH information/titillation to keep you seated.
I personally found Mr. Pitt's characterization to be oddly stifled. I also think he did an amazing job with what he was given (precious little).
The other two leads were by turns bad and worse. And to top it all off our Leading Lady's breasts where so odd looking and perverted (probably by surgery) and since she doesn't get to hide her secret shame... It gets pretty surreal.
A friend who went with me to see it, and who really didn't like the film very much, asked me about the parents' reaction to their discovery late in the film. "Why would they do that?"
I told him that my take was they were not parents. The father was a child and the mother was too soft, for her children, her husband, or her own good. The kids never had any limits.
And I must admit that the movie was too much about urinating. Folks urinate on and into all manner of things that cause us Calvinist Americans to cringe.
SPOILER
But the DÉNOUEMENT for me occurred when Theo is strangling Matt, simultaneously trying to stop Matt from telling him the truth about himself and hump Matt at the same time. The sad, stupid thing is Matt is right about Theo, and Isabelle. Theo needs to get down with the obviously interested (and bisexual) Matt. Theo also needs to stop pretending to be a communist when he obviously isn't one. And Isabelle needs to get the heck out her brother's bed.
They miss the points offered and are most likely dead by the end of the film.
The points Bertolucci is trying to make with using classic film scenes inter-cut with his own work are lost on me. The flashes are short-lived and in truth only illuminate the less hypnotic film created here. To a one, every old film dazzles and singes the mind and eye. Bertolucci may be trying to say that the late '60's were ugly and bereft of magic. I honestly don't understand why he'd stick us in one of the shabbiest apartments in Paris.
Still, I love many things here. I love the faster-than-usual-for-him pace of the film. I love Michael Pitt's performance. I love many of the set pieces.
And it is, after all, Bare-Toe-Lew-Chi!
I personally found Mr. Pitt's characterization to be oddly stifled. I also think he did an amazing job with what he was given (precious little).
The other two leads were by turns bad and worse. And to top it all off our Leading Lady's breasts where so odd looking and perverted (probably by surgery) and since she doesn't get to hide her secret shame... It gets pretty surreal.
A friend who went with me to see it, and who really didn't like the film very much, asked me about the parents' reaction to their discovery late in the film. "Why would they do that?"
I told him that my take was they were not parents. The father was a child and the mother was too soft, for her children, her husband, or her own good. The kids never had any limits.
And I must admit that the movie was too much about urinating. Folks urinate on and into all manner of things that cause us Calvinist Americans to cringe.
SPOILER
But the DÉNOUEMENT for me occurred when Theo is strangling Matt, simultaneously trying to stop Matt from telling him the truth about himself and hump Matt at the same time. The sad, stupid thing is Matt is right about Theo, and Isabelle. Theo needs to get down with the obviously interested (and bisexual) Matt. Theo also needs to stop pretending to be a communist when he obviously isn't one. And Isabelle needs to get the heck out her brother's bed.
They miss the points offered and are most likely dead by the end of the film.
The points Bertolucci is trying to make with using classic film scenes inter-cut with his own work are lost on me. The flashes are short-lived and in truth only illuminate the less hypnotic film created here. To a one, every old film dazzles and singes the mind and eye. Bertolucci may be trying to say that the late '60's were ugly and bereft of magic. I honestly don't understand why he'd stick us in one of the shabbiest apartments in Paris.
Still, I love many things here. I love the faster-than-usual-for-him pace of the film. I love Michael Pitt's performance. I love many of the set pieces.
And it is, after all, Bare-Toe-Lew-Chi!