Day Twenty-Eight: Last Tango in Paris

LAST TANGO IN PARIS

Starring:
-Marlon Brando
-Maria Schneider

Directed by: Bernardo Bertolucci

Screenplay Credits: Bernardo Bertolucci & Franco Arcalli

MPAA Rating: Two versions: R & NC-17


Let me say this right up front. If anyone ever comes up to you and says, “Get me the butter,” DO NOT DO IT. Run screaming in another direction. Marlon Brando makes this poor girl do things no one should have to do. Not even hookers do some of this stuff, I’m telling you.

I do have to admit, I’m still not completely clear on what this movie is really about (besides two creepy people hooking up for sky rockets in flight, afternoon delight). Now the question you’re probably asking yourself at this point is, “M, why on earth do you even own this creepy movie?”

Well discerning blog reader, let me tell you. A friend found it in a five-dollar movie bin somewhere and, remembering how much I love movies, bought it for me. I didn’t have the heart to tell her how creepy it is.

Here’s what I was able to figure out before my eyes started bleeding: Marlon Brando is this 45-year-old American dude with terrible hair who is interested in renting an apartment. The Maria chick is a 20-year-old French woman who is also considering said apartment. They run into each other in the flat, briefly discuss who is going to get it, then they start going at it. Just out of nowhere. It’s very weird. So anyway, they put on their coats and leave. The girl runs to the train station to pick up her fiancé…what a skank.

Anyway, we learn that Brando’s wife has just committed suicide (she was probably upset that her husband was such a creepy freak) and that he now wants to have an abusive affair with this 20-year-old Parisian to get out some of his crazy.

Let me tell you, he puts this girl through the ringer, but not in happy fun ways. This is more like weird torture.

My favorite part of this movie is when the two of them sit in bed and make silly noises. That probably says something really strange about me, but I don’t care. Another cool part is when Brando demonstrates his acrobatics (fully clothed, mind you). If you’ve seen this bizarre movie you probably know what I’m talking about. It’s after the sodomy and before the record playing. He’s lying on his back on the floor; he reaches his arms above his head, pushes off the floor and is suddenly standing upright. For whatever reason, this trick fascinated me, and I rewound the DVD to watch it maybe four or five times.

Brando torments her with a dead rat and forces her to take a bath.

At last Brando tells the girl he loves her and he doesn’t care where they live or what people think, he just wants to be with her, which is nice but seems like a major case of “too little too late.” For a minute there you think it might actually end well for the two of them, but they get kicked out of a dance contest and she tells him it’s over. He chases her to the apartment, tells her he loves her again, she shoots him in the stomach, and he goes out on the balcony to die. I normally like sort of quirky movies, but this just wasn’t my kind of quirky.

Final Grade: C-

Off in search of something to make me feel clean again,

M.