Bertolucci’s Me and You

Kids can smell money better than anyone, so when they shun a well-heeled classmate, there must be something off about him. Lorenzo is one such social outcast. His analyst is clueless, but the audience immediately recognizes a host of family issues. Perhaps it represents progress when his oedipal issues evolve into an interest in his half-sister. It promises to be an awkward week for the lad in Me and You (trailer here), the eagerly awaited new film from Bernardo Bertolucci, which finally opens this Friday in New York.

Bertolucci never exactly spells it out, but we can deduce from early conversations, Lorenzo’s mother is his father’s trophy wife. The unseen old man only puts up with the surly kid to indulge his still attractive mother. As part of his divorce settlement, he shunted off Lorenzo’s half-sister Olivia, but this was probably no great loss, considering her behavioral problems. Lorenzo is quite difficult as well, but his mother is practically giddy anticipating the week he will be away from home on a school sponsored skiing trip. Just imagine Lorenzo being sociable—except he really won’t.

Instead, Lorenzo plans to spend the week holed up in the basement of their apartment building, indulging in junk food and teen angst. However, his week of brooding is interrupted by Olivia’s intrusion into his makeshift lair. She also intends to crash for the week, in hopes of kicking her habit cold turkey. Initially, they are rather standoffish towards each other, but they start to bond as Lorenzo nurses her through the worst of her detoxification. Can they maybe learn a few lessons from each other?

Granted, Me and You is a minor film compared to Bertolucci’s sweeping masterpieces, like The Last Emperor and The Conformist, but it is an earnest story, well served by the master’s restrained approach. It is rather subtle hinting at Lorenzo’s hang-ups, but it still compares quite easily with Bertolucci’s more overtly and provocatively sexual films, such as La Luna, Stealing Beauty, and The Dreamers (with Last Tango in Paris being in a class by itself).

Given his snide features and pimply complexion, it is doubtful any teenage Italian girls have posters of lead actor Jacopo Olmo Antinori on their walls. Bertolucci’s gawky presentation of his character hardly does his any favors either, but he is certainly credible as petulant, anti-social boy. For her part, Tea Falco vividly expresses the youthful world weariness of a teen junkie. Their chemistry is appropriately ambiguous, but undeniably potent.

Frankly, it is just nice to have Betolucci back in action. As much as we might like to have another huge canvass from him, we will settle for an artfully composed miniature like this. Recommended for connoisseurs of Italian cinema, Me and You opens this Friday (7/4) in New York at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema.

Seduced and Abandoned: James Toback and Alec Baldwin Want Money

Alec Baldwin loves making movies so much, he is now a boring talk show host.  Perhaps this was the last hurrah for the star of Rock of Ages. He and director James Toback hit the Cannes Film Market hard in search of financing for a prospective indie production, simultaneously filming a documentary of their cold calling, at least guaranteeing they would not leave empty-handed.  There is plenty of pitching but not a lot of closing in Toback’s Seduced and Abandoned (trailer here), which airs on HBO this coming Monday.

The idea is to remake Last Tango in Paris in Iraq during the immediate aftermath of the fall of Saddam.  Baldwin will play the Brando role, re-conceived as a rightwing military advisor and Neve Campbell will step into the Maria Schneider part, transformed into a leftwing journalist.  Campbell cannot make the trip to Cannes, but Baldwin and Toback assure her they would never make the film without her.  However, they do not make it past their second pitch session before they start throwing her under the bus.  They still love Neve, but maybe she can play the maid who comes to change their sheets.

Before long, they are also pitching actresses like Jessica Chastain, Diane Kruger, and Bérénice Bejo along with prominent sales agents and the assorted eccentric millionaires.  Of course, Last Tango in Tikrit sounds so gob-smackingly un-commercial we almost have to wonder if it is all an extended Borat gag, except Baldwin and Toback take themselves so seriously.  On behalf of the nation’s film critics, I would like to thank the Cannes financiers for not stampeding to fund what sounds like a Frankenstein combination of The Canyons and The Green Zone.

Of course, in addition to the market, there is also a film festival going in Cannes, allowing the fundraising duo an opportunity to talk to some world cinema’s leading lights.  Since S & A is a documentary about the movies, Martin Scorsese duly sits for an interview.  Perhaps the best sequence involves a sit-down with Bernardo Bertolucci in a hotel suite named in his honor, at which time the Tango auteur gives them his blessing for their pseudo-remake.  Among the many other big name participants, James Caan has some particularly colorful things to say about the industry. 

If you want to hear Toback and Baldwin kvetch than brother, this is the film is for you.  If only they were as funny as they think they are.  Toback captures some amusing inside baseball moments at Cannes and he incorporates some cleverly selected film clips, but Todd McCarthy’s Pierre Rissient: Man of Cinema delivers far more behind the scenes details. Harmless but conspicuously self-absorbed, Seduced and Abandoned airs this coming Monday (10/28) on HBO.

Bertolucci’s The Conformist

Due to a family emergency, reviews might be slow in coming over the next few days.--J.B.

Cogs love their machines. So it is with Marcello Clerici, a typically banal fascist who willingly sacrifices his soul to claim a place in Mussolini’s state during the course of Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist, which begins a special one week revival run today at Film Forum.

As envisioned by Bertolucci, Mussolini’s Italy is all about two things: architecture and sex. The former is severe and imposing, while the latter is rather decadent. In contrast, the individual counts for little, so perhaps Clerici really is not giving up much by relinquishing his sense of self. Though not a particularly dynamic individual, he has married Giulia, who is attractive yet both coquettish and bourgeoisie. At least their marriage offers Clerici what he considers the structure of “normalcy.”

Clerici’s honeymoon also provides a pretext to travel to Paris on an assignment for the government. He has orders to assassinate his former professor, Luca Quadri, a prominent anti-Fascist now living in exile. Even though Quadri and his trophy wife Anna fully understand Clerici’s politics, they welcome the couple into their home, perhaps because they both appear to be attracted to Giulia. Further contributing to the sexual tension, Clerici develops a passionate fixation on Anna. It all unfolds like tragic spectacle under Bertolucci’s operatic direction.

Though French actor Jean-Louis Trintignant is perfectly cast as the wan Clerici (putting the anti in anti-hero), Conformist is really defined by the work of Bertolucci and cinematographer Vittorio Storaro. Indeed, the director’s bold use of the ostentatious fascist backdrops effectively dehumanizes the characters, while Storaro’s light and shadows are often quite eerie.

There is also rather a lot of sexual content in Conformist, but unlike his notorious (and problematic) Last Tango in Paris, it serves a greater point by illustrating the moral rot of the totalitarian system. It is also more restrained and suggestive, rather than intentionally scandalous.

Conformist is one of Bertolucci’s two straight-up masterpieces, along with The Last Emperor. A chilling political morality play and a great art-house film, Conformist still retains its full power. It opens today (12/17) in New York for a special weeklong engagement at Film Forum.