Bernardo Bertolucci's second film is a dense semi-autobiographical coming-of-age tale about a 20-year-old named Fabrizio (Francesco Barilli) who's struggling between Marxist ideology and a more comfortable bourgeois life. Fabrizio rejects his middle-class background and his shallow fiancee
Clelia to pursue a Marxist lifestyle under the guidance of his communist schoolteacher friend Cesare, and also has a brief affair with his attractive young aunt, but eventually becomes politically disillusioned and leaves the communist party, then settles for a "normal" life with Clelia.
Made when Bertolucci was 22, (who, like Fabrizio, is also from Parma) the film already shows the key themes which would dominate his later work, specifically the concepts of an idealistic young dilettante and his spiritual and intellectual mentor, and the ultimate rejection of radicalism in favor
of a safe, but stifling, bourgeois life (both of which are echoed in THE CONFORMIST among others). The film is much more abstract in its structure than Bertolucci's later works, with the "plot" merely alluded to in a series of moody and atmospheric vignettes in which music is prominently featured.
Time and again, Bertolucci uses poetic sounds and images to try to communicate emotions and ideas, rather than plot, such as in the disturbing final scene where Fabrizio and Clelia's wedding is intercut with Cesare reading "Moby Dick" to a class of youngsters, as a tearful Gina hugs and kisses
Fabrizio's much younger brother, indicating that the cycle is bound to repeat itself all over again. Cinematically, the film is technically accomplished, but shows Bertolucci still developing his distinctive style, assimilating the long, sensuous tracking shots of Alain Resnais, the whispered
voice-overs and jagged jump-cuts of Jean-Luc Godard, the architectural compositions of Michelangelo Antonioni, the romantic realism of Robert Rossellini, and the social and political concerns of Pier Paolo Pasolini. leave a comment