FILM REVIEW - GALAXINA

FILM REVIEW – LAST TANGO IN PARIS.

This film has a reputation for being a major work of erotica, but if viewed as such it is likely to disappoint. It is best seen as a dark existentialist essay on possessiveness and despair, - as such it works well.

The film does have some strong sex scenes, notably the infamous butter scene, of which more shortly, but it is not an erotic film by any means.

Marlon Brando plays Paul, a middle aged American in Paris, who, unable to come to terms with the violent suicide of his wife, seeks solitude in a quiet, and dingy Parisian flat, which serves as his retreat. However, his solitude is interrupted by the arrival at the apartment of Jeanne, (Maria Schneider), a young, vivacious, and naïve actress, who has been double booked into the apartment by the landlady.

After a while the mismatched pair decide to have an unusual affair, in which they will avoid sharing their names or details of their lives outside the flat, where they will indulge in their sexual fantasies and seek release through the use of each other’s bodies. The arrangement works well for Paul, but Jeanne is intensely curious about Paul. She asks questions about his life, tries to manipulate him into revealing his true nature, and even searches through his pockets. She finds nothing.

Their sex games border on rape and domination by Paul. He demands that Jeanne brings him some butter as he eats cheese in the flat on her arrival. He does not use the butter on the cheese, but as a lubricant for an act of sodomy upon her. The scene is far from erotic as she is clearly distressed by the experience. Later, when he sees that a dead rat found in the squalid flat panics her; Paul torments her with it and even threatens to feed her its rear quarters.

Paul seems to lack manners or social etiquette. His eulogy over his deceased wife, Rose (the only sight we have of her is on her death bed), involves swearing and ranting at her for not telling him that she was in sufficient despair as to take her own life. He also beats up her lover, and humiliates his own Mother publicly for failing him.

Jeanne finds hope of a release from her self-destructive relationship – an actor she works with loves her. He proposes to her during a riverboat-filming scene, offering her a lifebelt from the boat as a symbol of his love. She initially declines his proposal and throws the lifebelt overboard. The camera shows the lifebelt sink – the very means of escape and finding hope and safety seems to vanish. However, Jeanne has decided to marry her actor-lover, and plans to break the news to Paul, but she finds that he has abandoned the flat without even saying farewell. She invites her fiancée to move into the flat with her, and though he finds it spacious (it has been depicted as claustrophobic in all the shots with Schneider & Brando), he also finds it smelly and seedy. He insists they live elsewhere.

Jeanne has a possessive and domineering mother of her own, and she sees announcement of her pending marriage while dressed in her now deceased father’s military uniform. She also plays with her father’s gun, which the mother has avoided contact with.

As Jeanne takes a walk, Paul reappears, dressed well, and being terribly polite. He has taken a new bedsit room, which he eventually admits to being a fleapit worse than the previous apartment flat. He takes Jeanne to a seemingly posh, but rather run-down tango-bar where dancers are in a strictly controlled competition. He breaks silence and starts divulging some details of his life, (though not his name) and admits that he can’t live without Jeanne. Though both get drunk, Jeanne retains her distance from Paul, but he won’t let her escape easily. He is now totally out of control. When they are thrown out of the ballroom for disrupting the dance, and Paul bares his backside at the female compere who tries to usher him away, he gives chase to Jeanne to make it clear that he will not let her go. She runs home to her Mother, though she is out. When Paul busts in and begins to mess with her father’s things, in effect seeing him as her father figure, Jeanne shoots and kills him. She is looking to camera in despair, thinking through her story for the police – a story that is mostly true – she doesn’t know him, or even his name. He just followed her home and tried to rape her. She tells herself this over and over again, though it is clear that she isn’t convinced by her own sincerity.

A strong, bleak story of people imposing their needs and values on others, and being unable to cope with grief, etc. It is not however, an erotic film, despite some strong sexual, nude imagery.

Arthur Chappell.