User reviews

Not many discuss Bertolucci's La Luna as one of his most challenging films but I beg to differ. In 1979 I presume the film's campy allure had not been registered but today it's all to be seen; call it kitsch or ironic, but la Luna encapsulates two worlds Bertolucci tried to negotiate in most of his films - the world of appearances and surfaces against the inner world of the protagonist. La Luna plays both against each other as a masquerade, because what we think we are getting is not what we really are seeing. Bertolucci presents the first part as a post-Freudian fable in late 70s Rome where an Opera singer and her son indulge in an Oedipal relationship. Bertolucci then introduces the lost but real father to the scene as if to eradicate Freudian psychoanalysis as a spurious retelling of Greek myth. It seems the son only wants his father's recognition and love, while the mother is marginalized. It's a very masculine thesis for Bertolucci, one that reinforces the illusory fundamentals of Patriarchy, while negating the matriarchal as a mere bypass to the final journey(father's love).

Jill Clayburgh's acting is off-key most of the time but this unwittingly invests the film with its latter-day camp quality, while Matthew Barry looks dazed and confused throughout the entire film. Rome is undoubtedly the best part of the film as well as the sumptuous visuals that capture its sun-drenched beauty and decaying but grand monuments.

In a way I feel sorry for Bernardo Bertolucci's La Luna, though maybe more for Bertolucci than the film itself. Having come off of the monumental undertaking of 1900, he probably wanted to still keep the challenging creative juices flowing, and in doing so concocted an idea surrounding a mother and son who lose their closest significant other and go to Rome, only to get dragged into their own created mire of drug addiction, self-absorption, and incest. This, of course, sounds quite meaty dramatically, at least when first heard. Executed on film it's another story, and the final script is probably what ends up making the film one of the weakest- if not THE weakest- I've seen from the director yet.

This still means that there's good chunks in there, even really wonderfully sordid moments of incredible familial dysfunction between mother and son. But unlike, for example, Malle's Murmur of the Heart, there's a lack of cohesion to any sense of firm psychology with either mother or son, and while things are fascinating and potent in dramatic spontaneity in the first two-thirds, there's a moment when things start to go downhill. By the end, I wondered if Bertolucci was about to break into the end of 8 1/2.

We're given a character study, that's for sure, and quite the two f***ed up characters. The mother is Caterina (Jill Clayburgh, a quasi Diane Keaton look-alike, however only sometimes talented and convincing), who's husband (in a great bit part by Fred Gwynne) dies suddenly while driving a car. Though both mother and son are devastated, they go to Rome so she can sing in the opera there. The son, meanwhile, is at that absolutely abhorrent age in anyone's life- 15- and at first is into some nothingness abound with a girl, and soon enough into a dead-end mind-set of heroin.

This alarms her mother, to be sure, and perhaps the most perfect scene of the film (whether this means it will shock or unsettle is another matter), is when the son plays piano for a moment when the mother tries to get her son to tell her about his drug problem, peers for a moment under his shirt, and then he erupts at her with physical violence. Finally it ends, and she goes to one side of the room with a look like 'what the hell just happened', and he goes off to do more junk. There's even the brilliant little insinuation, which is all that's needed, of a notion of desire when she's trying to peer at his arm.

Now, if there had been more scenes like this, consistently, it might even be one of Bertolucci's masterpieces. But, however, this is not to be. Towards the middle things even become shaky, as the same randomness of mind and spirit with the mother and son, this chronic sense of equal parts of nihilism, despair, gallows humor, and the oddness of bourgeois discontent with dark pasts, becomes something that Bertolucci isn't fully able to grab a hold of. And unlike in Last Tango in Paris, there's no Marlon Brando here to make things incredibly appealing with totally believable dread in the face of loss. Matthew Barry is decent in the part of Joe, the son, but also teeters on being annoying (which maybe is part of the desired effect, but still).

And the sense of how their push and pull relationship with his drug addiction as the center isn't fully resolved with the mother. Clayburgh's Caterina just isn't sympathetic, or empathetic, enough to get into her mind-set, because despite being interesting in her part of a somewhat un-fit parent who loves her son perhaps in the worst possible ways, and that both are crazy, it isn't enough to sustain what happens at the 2/3 mark...which is when Bertolucci and his writers pull out the "son, I'll take you back to your roots, and find your *real* father who made you a bastard" card, and everything goes downhill from there.

It's a mark of downhill quality that has almost been building, and it's troubling especially since a lot DOES work in morbid detail of the characters, and how operatic intonations somehow become involved in their plights. But Bertolucci tends to put the hammer down in both technique and substance, and only in the former does it really work. His and Vittorio Storaro's eye in this film is just as sharp and succulent as in their other collaborations, with the camera gliding seamlessly in some crucial ways, providing movement to just the slightest moments of emotional upheaval. Yet even in the least effective spot of the film, there are the moments, like when Joe plays drums with his fork and spoon at the table. Or the very awkward silence after the mother's sexual advances go very unheeded. In the end La Luna becomes more worthwhile to see for what doesn't work as opposed to what does.

While some might come away from it feeling that it's an uncompromising work of genius, I wouldn't, though it's not a failure either. It's a curious work of bravura testing of the limits of what people- in this case Americans- can be in such a European environment, and that the psychologies therein are as wobbly as a bad table leg.

It's obvious watching Luna that Bernard Bertolucci has a visual gift. The movie's opening scenes are lyrical and arresting. Unfortunately, what follows is a ridiculous story about an opera singer (Clayburg) who tries to hold onto her 14-year-old junkie son by trying to have sex with him. Despite touches of humor and candor (like the scene where Clayburg visits her son's Muslim dealer), the overall effect made me sad for the actors, who took a great risk, I think, in agreeing to appear in this. By the time I reached the sappy, "magical" operatic finale, my finger was firmly pressed against the Fast-Forward button.

Well well well, what do we have here? Another one of Bertolucci's earlier films? Yes and No. This is one of Bernardo Bertolucci's earlier films (1979), but it is unlike anything that he had done before or ever did again.

La Luna is something that is a gem of film-making history, even though it is virtually impossible to get on video (and it will most probably never be shown on Television again).

It tells the sad, depressing (yet beautiful) tale of a young boy's growth into adolescence , while experimenting with drugs and eventually (as they always do) ends up becoming addicted to Heroin.

His Mother(played ever so beautifully by Jill Clayburge), in an effort to try and 'wean him' off the drugs develops an incestuous relationship with her son.

Shocking as the description above may sound at first, please do not let it put you off seeing this fantastic film, as it is only a small slice of the cinematically glorious outing that this film is!

The photography portrayed in this film is the best that bertolucci has ever achieved (Yes, even the fantastic The Last Emperor and Little Buddah). When I say a film is utterly breath-taking (I am a hard person to please when it comes to films, just read my other reviews here!), then you know you're in for a treat and a half.

But, what is the point of this review unless people have a chance to witness the sheer beauty for themselves?

I saw this film when I was 15 years of age. I am now 26 and have never forgotten a single FRAME of La Luna. Every word, every scene sticks in my mind like a vivid memory, and I in some ways feel that I was in the film somehow and was able to feel all the anger, all the pain and all the love that surrounded it.

For a film to make this much of an impression on someone and for that impression to still be fresh in the person's mind eleven years later, you also know this film has to be a good thing.

You people, I am very sad to say, will probably never have the chance to see this film (as it has not been released on Video - I have tried nearly every day for eleven years to find a copy!!!).

But let what I have said stick in your mind, just as La Luna hopefully will some day...

I always try to see as many European movies as possible. That has nothing to do with the fact that I'm a European myself. It's because I want to keep an open mind on as many kinds of movies as possible. I certainly do not dislike Hollywood movies, but I find the Asian and European movies sometimes more original and stylish. Especially the Italians seem to have a feeling for creating a beautiful, stylish and colorful movie, so when I got the chance to see "La Luna", a movie directed by Bernardo Bertolucci I didn't have to think twice...

"La Luna" tells the story of the recently widowed American opera diva Caterina Silveri. She takes her teenage son Joe, who believes that it was his father who died, while in reality it was his stepfather, with her on a long singing tour to Italy. But she is so absorbed by her hectic work schedule that she doesn't pay much attention to him. Soon she discovers that her troubled and lonely son has become a heroin addict and in her attempts to get him of the drugs, they start an incestuous relationship. Still, these problems may also result in a meeting between Joe and his real father, whose existence she has always kept a secret, but now reveals in a desperate attempt to make her son act normal again.

I understand that many people will raise an eyebrow after reading this resume, but I guess that's exactly what I mean about keeping an open mind towards as many movies as possible. I'm sure you'll never see such a movie in Hollywood, but that doesn't mean it can't be any good, does it? And yes, perhaps the subject will not appeal to many people, but in my opinion it still is worth giving a try.

I've read in other reviews that this may well be the best movie Bertolucci has ever made, better than "The Last Emperor" and "Little Buddah", his more famous movies. I really can't tell you whether they are right or not, because I haven't seen those movies yet, but what I can say is that this is a good movie. The acting and the photography make this movie look better than average and make the disturbing subject bearable to watch. That's why I give this movie a 7/10. It's probably not to everybody's taste, but it certainly isn't bad.

A childhood memory, looking into his mother's face with a full moon creating a halo around her. Beautiful and so Italian. The mother in this case is Jill Claybourgh, she was raiding the crest of the wave then and it's very telling that she would choose to play a part that required, not just appearing completely nude but making love to her teen age junkie of a son. She is awkwardly terrific. Her face is a voyage in itself. I would have use quite a different wardrobe for her character as well as make up and hair style but maybe that was just a sign of its day. Jill laughs saying "I am crazy" and that would explain some of the dangerous nuttiness she indulges in here. Her son, played beautifully, by unknown - before and since - Matthew Barry. A Bertoluccian teen sex object if I ever so one. The film has oodles of moments to cherish. Tomas Milian plays the boy's real father. They've never met, His father still lives in a rather intense relationship with his mother, the stunning Alida Valli. In small, very small parts, Carlo Verdone, Roberto Benigni and Renato Salvatori. A film to enjoy with your heart, your gut and your libido but not your brain. Just live your brain for other Bertolucci jewels.

I found this a stunning and emotionally complex film. If you enjoy films mainly concerning characterisation in which the emotional complexities of human beings are not served up in easily chewable chunks, then you will probably enjoy this film. Even given the above, you might still be disconcerted by the rapid plot changes and narrative swings. Two points are valid here: Bertolucci directed this during the time when he was heavily into psychoanalysis ; and secondly, someone quite lucidly stated that Bertolucci's Spider's Stratagem was a movie with a linear narrative shown in a non-linear manner while La Luna was a movie with a non-linear narrative shown in a linear manner. Viewed in this manner, one can enjoy the film with its many beautifully crafted scenes.

I love how the film presents the craziness of life with its contradictions, multiple meanings and emotional messiness. The irrational and problematic behavior of the characters may make the film harder to follow but seems to me a truer view of life than the explicit logical road map given to audiences in most films.

The film does date itself clearly in the 1970s, so you have to accept some scary clothing moments such as Jill Clayburgh walking out of a building into a bright Rome day wearing sunglasses so big only a comedian would wear them these days. But on the whole this does not distract from the overall effect.

Finally, opera lovers will enjoy the set piece opera scenes which are very ingeniously shot and beautifully staged.

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.

Not quite sure how I exactly feel about this film. As with a lot of Bertolucci movies, there are plenty of cringe-inducing moments, from the overblown Verdi opera scenes to Jill Clayburgh campily dancing around to rock music screeching "Oh yeah! In the 60s we believed in THINGS!!!" Taken as a whole, the movie is very uneven, psychologically muddled, heavy-handed and overlong. But there are haunting stretches in this movie which continue to resonate with me -- an opening passage where Clayburgh is biking in the night with her baby, and even smaller moments like the strangely beautiful shot of the teenagers skateboarding down the streets of Rome, or the kid dancing to "Night Fever". I would love to rewatch it and hope it get released on DVD. It's a fascinating entry in Bertolucci's work. A mess, but I think it's stayed with me more strongly than 1900 or Tango, though I think The Conformist still reigns supreme.

One of my favorites -- a "perfect" movie by MY standards: intelligent, a good story, great direction, an attractive and effective cast, and stunning locales and photography. An elegant production -- not one lame or wasted moment. New York-based American diva Jill Clayburgh, a true celebrity, is married to (it could happen!) Fred Gwynne. Her only child, a teenage son (Matthew Barry) accompanies his parents to a plush rental home in Italy, where Clayburgh's opera career has taken her, and where his biological father lives. Though hobnobbing and partying with the rich and famous in Rome, Clayburgh nonetheless is worried about her son because of his "distance" and solitude, -- he doesn't take to his step-father -- his general teenage angst, and his pending reunion with his "real" father. Clayburgh's motherly instincts kick in and she soon learns her loving son has indeed fallen in with the "wrong crowd." Mamma mia! He is on his way to being a junkie and Clayburgh takes rather "extreme" steps to get the boy's mind off heroin and other cheap thrills. Not for the kiddies, but entertaining for grown-ups who like something different and have open minds.

The adult theme is rather tame, relatively speaking, and is handled well and not explicitly, especially compared with the moronic garbage being spewed out in American movies and TV today. Certainly not in the nearly-x-rated category of Bertolucci's "Last Tango in Paris," for example. What I want to know is whatever happened to the hauntingly handsome then-youngster Matthew Barry? He could have had a promising film career, based on his good looks and his performance in Luna. I saw this on Cinemax in the early, good old days (early 1980s) when it aired great movies, especially foreign films. I have tried, but been unable to, buy it, sad to say.)

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.

The movie starts out a bit interested with the son interested in a teenage girl his own age. Clayburgh's timid-appearing husband is killed in car crash as she is getting ready to go to Rome and sing as a diva. Matthew objects but comes along. He connects with the young girl again but this time, Matt is on cocaine. His superb voice, lovely, impetuous mother is in the limelight. She doesn't know how to handle Matt's addiction. The movie drags on in search of a plot. Clayburgh is in the wrong role and Bertolucci may have had his head in the moon while directing the picture. The Moon has great symbolism.

Save your time. I am perhaps overly generous with 4*.

Another memorably visual movie piece to add to this cult director's belt, and again, I was not disappointed, and more so appeased, as I really enjoyed this one, more than I thought I would, by some stretch. If you analyze the story, it actually makes sense. Let's face it, mother-son incest, is not too appealing, but this movie doesn't exploit, but more rationalize it, in a tame and poignant way. The wonderful Clayburgh, really carries this film, with such a roping performance, as a widowed mother and opera singer, who lost her husband (Gwynne) of all people, to a heart attack. She and young son, move to Italy, and it's not the best choice, as son merges with the wrong crowd of friends, and falls victim to heroin, supplied by a local town punk or playboy, who Clayburgh confronts later, and throws him an offer. Such a strong message is plastered across the screen about parent neglect, and we so much feel for the poor son, any mother would be proud to have, who's just drowning in a sea of self worthlessness, and there are moments, when we really hate Clayburgh's character, but we know why she has become, like this. The chosen locations of Italy are beautiful, especially the night shot ones. The opening scene, was beautifully shot and unexpecting, but totally pulled me in, part metaphor if you decide to watch this film , which I highly encourage you to do. Son and mother performance are equally impressive, and Clayburgh, is like a hot potato. You don't know how she'll react, and what she'll do next. The ending is mesmerizingly thought stirring, visually as well. I suggest you take a good look at La Luna. I'm glad I did. A stand alone, stylish, original treasure.

Jill Clayburgh is curiously cast as the opera-singing mother of a teenage heroin addict whose motherly warmth towards her son has sensual overtones; however, even within this loose, frenetic, decadent scenario, Clayburgh manages to make the role work for her. She's courageous and colorful, even if it is rather difficult to believe those boffo operatic notes are coming out of Jill's rail-thin frame. Bernardo Bertolucci's provocative, pithy, sad and beautiful film is really something else. Bertolucci doesn't have much to say about mother-son relationships (incestuous or otherwise), but his portrait of a boy falling into an abyss, into a dangerous garden of different stimuli, is quite beguiling. Critics were sharply divided on "Luna" at the time. The picture does have a tendency to stray; it's inscrutable and demanding--and yet, taken as a purely visceral experience, there are moments which are breathtaking. *** from ****

I recall that both Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel HATED this film, which they characterized as senseless meanderings in an incomprehensively large Italian villa by two characters about whom we care nothing. I chose to see it anyway, and absolutely loved it. Perhaps only a woman can relate to just how far a mother will go to redirect her son from a deadly path.

I actually auditioned for the role of the son when the mother was originally supposed to be played by Liv Ullman I think I read for it twice but was ultimately rejected because I looked too American in a Tom Sawyer kind of way-the boy who ended up doing it had a European quality in his face which Bertolucci wanted for the role. I saw it twice when it came out in the US, both times at the Loews Twin Cinemas. I remember it as having been gorgeously shot. The performances by Clayburgh and Barry are extremely good. Alida Valli is superb. The opera scenes were fantastic. Why isn't this out on DVD? Will we have to wait until after Bertolucci's death?