I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Last Tango in Paris stars Maria Schneider, Marlon Brando and Jean-Pierre Léaud and is directed by Bernardo Bertolucci. It tells the story of a man who develops an anonymous relationship with a young Parisian woman in an apartment they both wanted to buy. They are both dealing with their own individual issues but when they come together, new problems and solutions begin to form also. I absolutely adore this movie. When I first heard of this film I was unsure as to what I was going to get, I knew Marlon Brando was in it so I was sure to get good acting but I was not sure about anything else. I had not seen Bernardo Bertolucci's or Agnès Varda's other work so I was unsure whether I would like their type of directing. I soon realised how much this film had to offer and how well it was made, It did have one moment of discomfort for me as an audience member but other than that it is a really good, comprehensive and romantic film. I normally do not enjoy romance films but this really changed my mind about that, not only are the characters fleshed out enough to be relatable and likable but I actually cared about them even though I knew very little about them. There are moments where we get an insight into their own lives and we see the deeper story of each of them and how their intimate moments in the apartment are what they need the most in their lives and how important it is for them. We see how Paul (Marlon Brando) is distant for most of the film but slowly becomes closer to Jeanne (Maria Schneider) and opens up to her about his past later on even though he remembers nothing positive whilst Jeanne pushes him and wants him to recognise her as a person and become more known to each other from the very beginning but Paul does not want this because he believes everything apart from their relationship is complete and utter bullshit and as soon as they get to know each other, the anonymity as well as the pure affection they have for each other will disappear. Paul is damaged and he is always melancholy until he meets Jeanne. He always seems troubled by something which we soon find out in the film. We feel a semi-aggressive undertone within Paul because of his actions towards Jeanne whist also seeing an incredibly vulnerable human being with a lot on his mind. This film is filled with emotional honesty, it is open and genuine, It felt real and bare and the acting was just so perfected. You could feel the characters' pain and anger about their past as well as Jeanne's specific ignorance to the whole situation and Paul's hard exterior but soft heart. You can see Paul's pain and his emotional nudity in this specific scene where he is confronting someone he loved deeply even though he had a lot of issues with them also and this scene alone is why I feel he should have win an Oscar for this role. It is so subtle and well acted, It felt honest and truthful, It looked difficult for Brando because of how emotional it is.There are a lot of moments where I feel these two characters are just isolated from everyone else and feel detached from the normally accessible society they live within emotionally and even physically similar to Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver where in this case it is due to their unique perspective on others and themselves. Paul is not an ordinary person you meet everyday but more like someone who you can tell is going through a lot and you can just see by his body language that he is contemplating his life and how he wants to move on with it or if he even wants to move forward. In this case it seems the relationship he has with Jeanne is mostly for the sole purpose to stay in the common idea of having a significant other as roaming the city on your own can lead to seriously damaging thoughts. Paul seems to be unstable emotionally as he cannot seem to communicate with Jeanne effectively but rather physically communicates with her quite harshly sometimes but other times in a respectful and considerate manner.This movie is beautiful visually, It gives you time to really become a part of the films world and recognise the atmosphere whilst getting to know these characters that become and express the emotions that we feel almost every day almost to a subtle extremity, a simple fluidity to their existence and it works very well. I love the music in this movie I find it fits the story very well, the characters are interesting and you care about who they are and their past because it is kept from us for a while in the film and you also get to really embrace the relationship Jeanne and Paul have in this movie. I love the directing of this movie I think it flows very well, the scenes are captured well and it blends very well with the lighting and the tone fits perfectly also, The characters stay on track even though that means they make mistakes or make choices they should not have made.There are beautiful interactions between Jeanne and Paul that I loved watching and that's why the ending really pains me because I know it is how it should end but it is no how I wanted it to end. It's one of my favourite films.

This is a seventies film that is unsure of what it is meant to be and what it becomes as a result is probably just soft pornography(with one very unpleasant exception), mixed in with a little bit of satire, some meandering reflections on childhood, and having a muted incidental dark edge to it.The combination of sex in relationship to death however oblique was probably made controversial more by the amount of nudity on show (by the woman of course). Yet the downbeat cinematography, the sparse locations, the lack of empathetic characters make this a bleak and uninvolving film. No amount of sex or nudity makes this film interesting, despite trying its best to do so.It really is a disappointment, not a terrible film, and not a film without odd moments of humour either. The ballroom scene near the end where the films title is directly referenced is actually funny, particularly the outraged judges who are appalled by the frivolous dancing of Brando and his young partner Maria Schneider.The film does try to create a darkness which doesn't quite work. Brando's unfaithful wife is shown to have killed herself and he embarks on a very cold detached affair with Maria Schneider's character. It is exploring a very dysfunctional relationship, but because you don't really care about the characters, the darkness in the film appears as an after thought.It is a challenging role for Brando but perhaps because he can be quite a complicated and aloof actor anyway, there is simply not enough warmth in this role from him to make you care about the character.Maria Schneider unfortunately does not get much more of a role then to be completely naked. There is a side story showing her making a true life documentary with her director boyfriend. It is meant as parody, but you still don't care about her character and it further distracts from the darkness of the main plot-line.There are genuinely controversial elements today a modern audience should find very uncomfortable. One of the sex scenes which might have been seen by some as acceptable in the seventies, would almost certainly be seen as non-consensual sex and therefore rape in today's courts.Therefore this film is a extremely disappointing on a number of levels. What might have been a very interesting and truly great film is seen to condone rape because it does not challenge the man over his actions, or explore the affects on her of that rape. A far less serious disappointment is that the acting does not engage you. It's a film that is a creaky, often pretentious piece, and probably (with one nasty exception) not much more than soft pornography.

One movie that had been on my list to watch was Last Tango in Paris. It was heavily referenced in the documentary Seduced and Abandoned where Bernado Bertolucci shares how this movie captured a side of Marlon Brando and he refused to talk to him for 7 years after that. The movie is about an American played by Marlon Brando who finds himself in Paris after the death of his wife. He seeks comfort in a French woman Jeanne (Maria Schneider). They begin a passionate affair that pushes the limits of lust and sexual ecstasy. At the time of the release this movie was given a rating of X, but seems pretty tamed in today's world. The story came from a dream that Bertolucci had about having an anonymous sexual encounter with a woman he did not know or never would know. Pretty much every man's dream, pleasurable erotic, guiltless sex. It blends the magic of the French sensuality with the aggressive American attitude. A masterful film and a classic that needs to be seen by all movie buffs.

One. Two. Cha-Cha-Cha.Amongst all of the controversial films that were produced in the 1970s (and there were plenty), Last Tango In Paris (or LTIP, for short) ranks right up there at #1. There can certainly be no denying this film's controversy.As far as mainstream films go, this Italian import did everything that it possibly could to break down the barriers of what was acceptable and what wasn't in the realm of a film's sexual content. At full-throttle, LTIP deliberately toes the thin line between what is considered porn and what isn't.Even though this film's impact has mellowed significantly with age, I suggest that you watch LTIP and be the judge of this one for yourself.LTIP's story is probably about as shallow as any story could ever get. It's so shallow, in fact, that it nearly chokes the viewer with its sheer mindlessness. But, hey, let's face it, LTIP's story is inconsequential. It's the sex that we're all here to watch. Right? So, the story be damned.LTIP's story (what there is of one) concerns the tragic "no questions asked" sexual liaison that transpires between a naive, young, French woman and a middle-aged, American lech, who demands that the 2 of them remain as anonymous with each other as possible. To achieve this end they both solemnly agree to not share any personal information about themselves, including not revealing their real names.Some people say that Brando's performance as "Paul" was one of his very finest.Personally, I saw Brando's "Paul" as just a simple revising of his Stanley Kowalski character in A Streetcar Named Desire from some 22 years back. And, with that being the case, I'm sorry, but BRANDO looking like a totally dishevelled slob at 52 and playing a lech in LTIP wasn't anywhere near to the same thing as a young, virile-looking BRANDO, at 30, in a strategically torn t-shirt, playing a totally despicable slob.... Nope. It wasn't the same thing, at all.Below are 2 LTIP trivia notes - 1 - Marlon Brando, being the impossible, little "Method" actor that he was, refused to memorize his lines for his part. Instead, he placed little cue cards all around the set to remind himself of what to say, and so forth. (spare me) As you can well-imagine, this cue card business of Brando's literally drove director Bernardo Bertolucci crazy, trying as he could to make sure that none of these stupid, little cards (sticking out everywhere) remained visible in his film's final product.2 - Years after LTIP's release, actress Maria Schneider came out of the closet, or wherever, to say that playing "Jeanne" was the absolute, most humiliating experience, as an actress, that she had ever had to endure.Maria claimed that certain sex scenes, particularly the simulated anal-rape scene, were not in the script and that it was Brando and Bertolucci who plainly coerced her into doing these scenes, with Brando repeatedly reassuring her - "Maria. Don't worry. It's only a movie."Schneider said that the tears she cried during the buttery-buggering scene were very real, indeed - They were the tears of a person who had been both deeply humiliated and betrayed, big time.So, darling, save the last dance for me!