Before the Revolution: Bernardo Bertolucci

Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian writes of Before the Revolution: "Bernardo Bertolucci's brilliant early film about political and emotional tensions in mid-60s Italy is still just as powerful as when it was first released." I want to officially call bullsh!t. Before the Revolution is a tired, convoluted, confusing piece of faux-French New Wave film making. It's the kind of movie that claims to have a plot, but seems to take every opportunity to ignore it so its characters can go off on desperate existential, or in the case of this film, Communist, tirades. This film is supposedly about a disillusioned young Communist who starts an affair with his aunt after his best friend may or may not have committed suicide by drowning himself. After his aunt cheats on him (at least I think that's what happened) he abandons his Communist beliefs and marries a bourgeois rich girl. This movie has its head so far up its own duodenum that it starts to digest itself. It makes no attempt towards narrative cohesion. Instead, it would rather watch pretty people stare blankly at nothing for several minutes before making an off-hand remark about Howard Hawk's Red River. Hey, Bertolucci, you need to remember one of the most important rules of film making: never mention a film better than your own inside your movie. Then again, he could have named just about ANY film and he still would have broken that rule.

3/10