Sunday, July 13, 2008

by Ari

The Last Mistress joins the esteemed league of Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris and Ang Lee's Lust, Caution as one of the most exquisitely crafted and explicitly erotic love stories put to film. This delicate period drama set between the rigid customs and almost theatrical gossip of 19th Century French aristocracy is a testament to the pure sensual power of cinema. It's not too often I experience an audience applauding sexuality in a theater, but director Catherine Breillat's masterful command of pacing and suspense creates a delicious and wicked display of love and lust that's nearly impossible to dislike. At first I was afraid the audience would respond unfavorably to the explicit nature of the story (like my audience for The Dreamers did), but thankfully the erotic content was most satisfying for tonight's viewers.

Asia Argento and Fu'ad Ait Aattou play the tragic lovers of Breillat's adapted story about a young man (Aattou) from the upper crust who reveals the secrets of his ten year affair with a provocative foreigner (Argento) before he's to be married to the "love of his life", a pretty young girl from of a noble name. The scandalous history of the young libertine is the source of enormous gossip throughout the aristocracy, but the story he tells is as tender and romantic as it is perverse and tragic. Argento and Aattou are astonishing and brave performers, and if the sequence where she passionately licks and sucks the blood from his bullet-torn flesh isn't enough to win you over, then, come on, what is?