I liked this movie quite a bit. Bertolucci has directed plenty of mediocre films amongst the few masterpieces, and The Last Emperor is somewhere in between. The film is easily watchable despite its three-and-a-half hours length, yet the director is reserved in how he tells this story - which is pretty out of character for him.
It's almost like The Dreamers at times, if that story was told from great distance (as shot with panoramic wide shots!) instead of intimacy. And indeed, the heart of this movie is these isolated young people discovering sex (which would be terrifying if Bertolucci moved his camera to the South!).
The movie isn't cold, it's too proper. Looks gorgeous, but the script doesn't particularly explore anything - neither the sex, being young and cut off from the world, or nationalism or self-identity - and these are only a few themes touched upon by the movie. It's a history lesson, although so well-made as one that I still recommend it. Would've loved some dramatic embellishments to the story, to reach the Ecstatic Truth as Herzog calls it - but ah, it's a damn solid movie.
It's almost like The Dreamers at times, if that story was told from great distance (as shot with panoramic wide shots!) instead of intimacy. And indeed, the heart of this movie is these isolated young people discovering sex (which would be terrifying if Bertolucci moved his camera to the South!).
The movie isn't cold, it's too proper. Looks gorgeous, but the script doesn't particularly explore anything - neither the sex, being young and cut off from the world, or nationalism or self-identity - and these are only a few themes touched upon by the movie. It's a history lesson, although so well-made as one that I still recommend it. Would've loved some dramatic embellishments to the story, to reach the Ecstatic Truth as Herzog calls it - but ah, it's a damn solid movie.
