Dreadfully Boring

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Go in cold, and you're likely to emerge with your blood boiling. This has to be seen to be believed.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Bernardo Bertolucci's La Luna is a phenomenal piece of cinematic genius indeed, and something which should be viewed with an open mind, and most likely in solitude as opposed to with friends or family.I first saw the film over twenty years ago when it showed on a local TV channel late at night. It was my first introduction to Bertolucci, but it convinced me immediately of his powers! The storyline is simple, yet it is complex (let's call it simply complex for arguments sake!). It involved the character of an opera singer (played magnificently by Jill Clayburge), and her son (played equally fine by Matthew Barry).Some people have frowned upon the film for it's incestuous content - yet I would beg to differ. Although there most certainly are incest scenes in the film, there is really only one or two which 'shock', yet they are primary to the storyline, and they do help with filling out the flesh of it all, so to speak.Heroin addiction is another aspect of this film which may disturb some people (especially from a character so young), but being an ex heroin addict myself, these scenes did not bother me, but bought back some pretty painful memories (as did the incest ones), and they are done with beauty and not overindulged at all.Put simply, this film needs to be seen by everyone, and you must truly see it for what it is - a magnificent piece of artistic cinema in it's most purest form.

Bernardo Bertolucci have a fantastic way of making movies. His stories are usually a bit weird but altogether very interesting. This time the story doesn't please me that much.La Luna is a story about the relationship between an opera singer (Jill Clayburgh) and her son (Matthew Barry). The movie is as beautifully filmed as Bertolucci's movies always are but the weird incestical feeling about it does not appeal to me. I just can't find any reason for it. I also think that the heroin addiction is not portrayed very believably.Plus points for the strong European feeling in the movie.

There's some really heavy themes in this, most notably and controversially incest between the mother, an opera singer (the whole movie is quite operatic in the setting of Rome) and her son, a teenager slowly being sucked into a world of drugs as he slips away from his mother. It doesn't cross the line all the way, instead hovers back and forth between a loss they've shared and a promise of being together at any means, albeit not in the conventional sense.Lovely, epic music lacquers the scenery and intensity between the parent, who finds it a duty to be closer to the son thats torn between guilt and anger. Note though, that the physical incest is not as strong as the theme of emotional incest, which is usually the more pervasive of the two. It's main focus seems to be the mending of a mother-son relationship when both mother and son are wrecks to begin with. This film is quite the rarity. I bought my DVD at a garage sale. Might be Italian though, the wordings' are a bit wrecked on mine, but a splendid cover art, it's why I even noticed it underneath a clutter.It's quite a heavy subject matter to tackle, plenty for the psychoanalytical of us to ponder over. Quite typical of Bertolucci to polarise his viewers. I would agree that the film is a task especially its beginning but its fruitful with much symmetry composing the parent/child relationship regarding the inexplicable quandaries of love and sexuality. Oedipal complexities are never fully explored physically thankfully, it doesn't go the distance like "Spanking the Monkey" did but what isn't shown is much more primal and imperative than what is shown. I've read many stinging criticisms of the film and its incomparable director of trying to shock his way through the auds. But I honestly am too blind or refractory for lack of a better word to subscribe to that.Bertolucci has a fond place in my heart. As simple as this sounds, he makes films that are memorable and have something to tell us - usually about politics and human sexuality. This film is one of his earlier works and its absolutely gorgeous. Speaking of gorgeous, Jill Clayburgh shows why she's so unsung, in this she plays a woman who's so respected to everyone but yet in shambles inside. I would love to see her in more and thank god I now have something to supplant her as Ally Mcbeal's mom.

Bertolucci's strength lies in the camera work. This film is one of the most beautiful I have seen, definitely on the top 50 of beautiful films. It often looks like watching a painting, with great harmony of colors.Bertolucci, like in many of his other films, take parts both from heavy art house cinema and mainstream Hollywood cinema. The characters are very much Hollywood, especially in the horrible first 30 minutes. The beginning (except the scenes from the house at the sea) is simply awful. Again, like in other B. films, the beginning is too rapid, unrealistic and uninteresting, an, imho disturbing, element typical for the film noir during the 1930/40s, but it's even worse than that since the dialog as well is awful during that part.After that, the movie is very captivating and impressive. Also sexually provocative at times. Sometimes twisted but in a relaxed way. Definitely worth seeing.