Last Tango in Paris

Uhh....what?

Depressing as all hell.

WTF pill was Jeanne on? I don't get her motivation at all. I can see how she's a certain kind of person drawn to the danger and taboo of the Brando, but I really don't see that person turing into a bipolar killer.

But unexpectedly!...

I really admired how they developed the Brando character. It could not have been an easy task, given the complexity: bereavement, cuckoldry, sadism, grief, lack of affect. And yet we totally get him.

Marlon Brando circa 1972 is actually still very good-looking. I was quite surprised. The only thing wrong is the Thomas Jefferson hairdo; it has a way of aging a man, and it definitely does not flatter the balding pattern.

Maria Schneider has the maddest bush I have ever seen. I doubt it could have fit under a swimsuit.

I'm going to risk looking like an ass and declare that this movie would have been rather boring if it were't for all the "artsy" sex. Although I'm not sure what makes it so artsy, except for how depressing it is. Normally I'd expect extreme high quality from the rest of the movie if it's going to save anal rape and, I dunno, poo-spraying or whatever, from the oblivion of pornography. But the story, from what I understand, is not that different from 9 1/2 Weeks, which surely is not art.

So is Last Tango in Paris art in spite of the smut or ONLY BECAUSE of the smut?

In conclusion, Maria Schneider has one epic bush.

Addendum:

I just read Roger Ebert's review of this movie. He explains the point I wasn't getting - what the fuck is up with Jeanne - by reiterating that her role is to be the object or thing. She is supposed to be too young and inexperienced to understand pain, and by extention, what her role is in Paul's sexcapade. She participates because there's no reason not to - indifferently, says Ebert.

I've been a girl before, and as such I hardly think this is the case. I'm convinced that you might have to be a man to accept this movie without perplexity, and really believe that it's a possibility for a woman (or any person) to exist as an indifferent object, an accessory, of another person's life. I think Jeanne keeps going back to Paul because she's a sexual person of a specific type (a masochist) and she can't express that need in her normal life. Why else would she get a addiction from rape, anal rape, humiliation, pain, etc? Society might try to convince me otherwise, but I don't really think that people are so lacking in feelings or self-respect that the only thing they'd feel is "indifference."