BackStage's Talk

Ultimo Tango a Parigi (Last Tango in Paris)

"last tango in paris" is marlon brando's self-reviving strike before he officially steps into his senile years of obesity, and his character in tango feels literily like the aging version of stanley kowaski of "streetcar named desire": prole stud with a simmering violent streak which detonates thru his sadistic libido. stanley shuts "stella!!!" in his most fragile moment and ravishes vivien leigh's blanche to exercise his strong urge of masculine dominion since he senses the contagious menace blanche puts over his enslavened wife. as elia karzan who directs several of brando's movies, such as "on the waterfront" and streetcar, comments that brando has a very tenderized feminine side conflicted with a sort of melancholy and disatisfaction which could be very dangerously explosive. "last tango in paris" shall be a perfect set to channel such brandoesque spirit by its deranged exploration of spotaneous roller-coaster sex as well as the existentialistic tale of bleakness.

the story is about a 20-something parisian woman who encounters a middle-aged american in a desolate apartment in slums, and at the spur of the moment these two mate in an animalistic way which is very close to sanctuary rape. somehow there's an undercurrent magnetism which keeps pulling these two back into this apartment as an oblivious vaccum of random sex as well as the retreat of their primitive intimacy to forget their private problems of life.

then we discover the man's wife has committed suicide and he's under a fundamental crisis of abysmal mentality since he has no idea why his wife leaves him for good without a final note. on the other hand, the young parisian woman's fiance is a self-centered movie-maker who has emoitonally deserted and ignored her, so in a way, she's lonesome and in the need of attention despite her functional facade. so this un-usual pair unite together under the circumstance of not knowing each other's name in a wretched world of sadness.

their intercourses are not genuine lovemaking but a result of the man's manipulated flaunt of manhood and the woman's side is more of a morbid curiosity for racy experiements, such as the notorious butter scene of anal sex and the fingering sodomy. what counts is their interactions driven by dialogues. they bares a sort of existentialistic anxiety out of their seperate conditions, and they crave for a space of temporality intagible to the reality. it digs into their memories of childhood to summon up their truest childish selves.

this otherworldy dimension of temporality is shattered when the girl eventually meets the man outside the apartment, and this unique romance is over when brando's sleazy banal self's exposed under the blistering sunlight of cruel reality, her heart flees away despite the man vows to capture her again as his prey. the moment he finally acquires her name, he's shot into the un-comprehesibly ironic death while she keeps mumbling to herself that "he's a stranger, i never met him, he broke into my apartment trying to rape me, so i shot him" as if their passionate redenzvou never happens. the aged brando with thining hair is no longer the powerful irresistible stanley kowaski who robs his woman back by an overwhelming snarl. and this time he's destined to lose the girl as youth and strength slip away from him no matter how desperately he attempts to keeps them. our existence may just be like that, an deliberated oblivion of constant denials due to our weakness to cope with death and the annihilation of beings.