LAST TANGO IN PARIS

I saw Last Tango in Paris when I was a teenager, and, like many people, I remembered only one thing: butter.

The thing is, whether it is classic or not, when I re-watched Last Tango in Paris again some 20 years later I still didn't really like it. Forty-something Marlon Brando is in the sunset of his hotness (before he was overtaken by The Bloat), and he is paired with 20-year-old French actress Maria Schneider. The movie is cruel and slow and mean and rambling.

The story is a slim one. A man, Paul, and a young woman, Jeanne, begin a purely sexual relationship based on a random encounter. They meet in a shoddy apartment building rented just for the sex... no names, no pasts. Paul freaks out whenever Jeanne let's slip a personal story that happens to have any specific details in it. In turn, he treats her like a whore, and she keeps coming back.

The sex is what put Last Tango in Paris on the map. Yes, it is raw and carnal, and has an extremely memorable (and still disturbing and violent scene) involving a stick of butter. But, really, the sex isn't anything more graphic (in fact a lot less, for the most part) than is in any modern film. If anything, some of the sex is rather curious. Maria Schneider's character has this weird tendency where, after sex, she flops to the floor (if she isn't there already), and rolls away from Brando, like log rolling down a hill. She did that TWICE in the first 45 minutes of the movie, and, immediately forgetting the hotness of the sex, I found myself thinking, "What is up with the log roll???"

Brando, to his credit, milks all he can out of certain scenes. Outside of the apartment, we learn that Paul's wife had just committed suicide, and he has a bizarre and compelling scene where he berates, insults, then grovels over his wife's corpse lying in state. He also manages to be quite moving where he leaves his young lust object confused on the floor as he goes off and cries in the corner. Schneider struggles a bit more to make Jeanne interesting beyond beyond tossed around like a sex toy by Paul. Though they both act in two languages (French and English), Schneider struggles to keep up with Brando, who always seems bent on wandering out of the scene and yelling some monologue and bursting into tears. Her Jeanne is immature and weirdly girlish (which is, I suppose, the appeal). She has a fiancé (Jean-Pierre Léaud), as young and silly as she is, who follows her around with a camera, making what sure looks like the first reality-based movie. These dull young characters just make you want to fast-forward back to Brando.

Last Tango is watchable, yet a bit frustratingly long. And you know what? It's kind of boring. Bertolucci has a bloated style in many of his movies, and this film suffers from that. My phone actually rang during one of Brando's monologues, and I ended up not pausing the film. True, by the time I hung up, he was still rambling. But it is definitely a ground-breaking film, and is worth checking out to see Brando in action with his fading physical glory still somewhat intact.

BLU-RAY NOTES

Alas, the only thing here is the theatrical trailer. Disappointing, because if any film deserves to be reflected upon, Last Tango sure is a prime candidate.