'Before the Revolution' - Bernardo Bertolucci
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — European Cinema
Paul P. Powell — 4 months ago(November 24, 2025 03:21 AM)
I dedicated this past weekend to Bernardo Bertolucci and his strange work,
"Before the Revolution".
For brevity I'll abbreviate the title as "BtR" (if needed) below.- Intro
BtR is a romance; and an intense one. Shot in B&W with exquisite editing and pacing.
Offhand, I can't name any other movie which captures the movement and energy of Italy, any better than this.
The photography is filled with the hustle and bustle of Italian streets. It really took me back. Genoa and Parma were the first Italian cities I ever experienced.
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Not exactly towns brimming with passion. Except here.
As a romance, BtR makes the grade –it deserves a ranking alongside anything by Fellini
('La Dolce Vita')
or any other notable romances
('A Man and a Woman').
Admittedly –it is a very longish movie and at times very frustrating and cerebral.
And it is filled with characters who pour out torrents of words. There are no dramatic actions or big, thrilling events. - Setting
The story is set in the bourgeois town of Parma, Italy; much of it takes place out-of-doors. Yet –dense with ideas as it is –it somehow manages to feel claustrophobic.
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BOWZhMmZmNDYtZWE1OC00MDkwLWE0NDQtYmRjZGU4YTExZjRlXkEyXkFqcGc@.V1.jpg - Characters
The protagonist ('Fabrizio') is a handsome young man of maybe 17 or 18 yrs old. He is from a very well off upper-middle class family and he hates it. He is always scowling; jaw always clenched.
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Unfortunately for this fervent Marxist – the Communist Party in Italy (at the time) was becoming effete and ineffectual.
So –as he is mulling over how to live his life –he is in a philosophical muddle. His head is at war with his heart. He foolishly yearns for world revolution he cannot get.
As a member of a notable family in Parma, the course of his life is largely, already laid-out for him to follow. He is soon to be engaged; soon to enter college, etc.
Intruding into the midst of his spiritual crisis comes Gina, his pretty socialite aunt from cosmopolitan Milan.
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It is this character which often makes for long, awkward sequences in the movie.
His aunt is a classic, neurotic, ditzy, airhead.
Bertolucci forces us to spend long moments with her as she rides her daily emotional rollercoaster.
Up and down, up and down —flitting from one mood to the next. Just like a capitalist.
Her emotionally-overwrought clashing with her nephew –after they impulsively become clandestine lovers –gives the story its erratic, shifting, unpredictable, spontaneity.
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" - Themes
Halfway through the flick? Not very happy so far. You're not at all sure where its going. Endless back 'n forth.
Back to "Fabrizio": the callow youth at the heart of the story –egad –you will never meet another adolescent as intellectually distraught as this one.
He spends every available moment walking around in circles, discussing Hegelian dialectics.
This intellectual Hero yearns for society to be shaken up –and although he does not get what he wants –neither does this treat us to anything deeply moving.
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But certainly, it is extraordinary narration by Bertolucci. You are right there in the lap of these two misfit lovers.
The boy and his sexually-predatory aunt, make one of the oddest cinematic couples ever.
Nevertheless, I feel their affair will stay with me for a long time.
Reasons:
(1) the camera spends a lot of time up-close on the actor's faces
(2) there is a torrential downpour back'n'forth of lover's dialogue
(3) that actress is so mercurial in her flit from mood-to-mood
(4) it is a love-hate relationship - Conflict
Above, where I mentioned that,
"one has no idea where the film is headed"
it's really because these two libertines are waging a tremendous idealogical battle of wills.
Their relationship sets them against each other in a war of abstract ideas. You can't tell who will win.
Fabrizio suffers the conceit that Italy needs 'shaking up', He believes all existing institutions should be knockled off their foundations. He's a hothead; a Savaronola.
'Business as usual'
–and
'the way of the world'
–enrages him.
Yet when hellcat Gina enters his life; she is Chaos personified. Daily, she disrupts everything around her; she's in constant turmoil.
We all know women like this. She's a mess! Disorganization and shambles in her wake.
So when she sweeps over him, we see how deeply he has been fooling himself. He retreats from their war-of-words, like a tortoise back into a shell.
At heart, h
- Intro