I am not that big of a fan of degenerate and repulsive French feminists. I am also not that into period pieces. The thought of both of these things together is almost unsettling. I recently saw Catherine Breillat’s The Last Mistress and now admit that I like a feminist’s dirty and bloody French period piece. I guess any film featuring a very aggressive and sexually deranged Asia Argento can’t be too bad. In The Last Mistress, Argento practically enslaves a young wussy frog despite her mental instability.
Asia Argento is the darkest and wickedest thing to hit the fairy like French aristocracy. She is the bastard daughter of Spanish and Italian aristocrats. An impure child of lust, Vellini (Asia Argento) is a mutt from two of the most mongrelized countries of Europe. The young and very feminine Ryno is at first offended by hearing of Vellini’s ethnic background. But within a few days, he is ready to die for Vellini. Ryno takes a bullet for her in a dual with an overweight senior citizen. Vellini almost rapes Ryno’s body as he is assumed to be dying. The Last Mistress is about true love.
Ryno finally finds himself a good Aryan girl after having too much of Vellini’s insanity. Naturally, Vellini is around every corner ready to molest Ryno. Will little Ryno give into this dark goddess? Can the Aryan girl even compete with the hypnotic spells Vellini effortlessly puts on Ryno? Director Catherine Breillat felt that suspenseful romance would be more interesting than showing the ugliest vagina's ever with The Last Mistress. This is a film that both sexes can relate to and possibly be “titillated” by.
Asia Argento may give her greatest performance yet in The Last Mistress. She doesn’t refrain from showing us her at her worst moments (not that she didn’t do that in Scarlet Diva). In The Last Mistress, Asia Argento embodies the very appealing yet dangerous vamp at a new and much complex level. Unlike most vamps, in The Last Mistress we can’t help but feel sorry for the manipulative and loose lady. After all, the male she seduces is a pathetic womanish creature anyways.
The Last Mistress is easily the best film I have seen from Catherine Breillat. Going into the film I expected a piece of pretentious dykeness and a wasted performance by Asia Argento. Instead, with The Last Mistress I got a somewhat complex character study of a pretentious aristocratic bachelor and his weakness for a woman of lust. I guess Catherine Breillat does have something interesting to say about males.
-Ty E
Great write-up on this film. I've seen the trailer for it. I'll pretty much watch anything that Asia plays in. I've heard good things about this one from other people. I definitely plan to check it out.
ReplyDeleteJust a question -- isn't Asia Argento Jewish, because her mother is Jewish? (Matriarchal lineage or something? I'm not sure how it works myself).
ReplyDeleteI ran into this blog by accident searching for pictures from Dario Argento's films; it's an interesting review. I thought the movie was actually kind of dumb though. The best thing about it was the set design and wardrobe, but the movie itself was a bit droll and not that in-depth.
I have never read anywhere that Asia's Italian mother Daria Nicolodi was Jewish. If you have a source for this claim I would be interested in checking it out. I know that Dario argento's mother was Brazilian.
ReplyDeleteIf Asia's mother is in fact Jewish, Asia is Jewish by rabbinical law whether she likes it or not.
Ah, sorry, my mistake. Asia does have some Jewish lineage, but her mother is Jewish through her father's side, so that doesn't "technically" make her Jewish. Still, she has Jewish lineage all the same.
ReplyDeleteW. Koenigsmann