Stealing Beauty

From the opening scene in which the camera zooms in on the crotch of Liv Tyler asleep on a train there is a creepy quality to this film about a 19 year old (Tyler) with the personal mission of losing her virginity who heads off to a commune of middle-aged English artists nestled in the foothills of Tuscany where she encounters a passle of randy tossers only too happy to oblige. The creepiness stems not from the voyeuristic subject-matter (as in a film such as Peeping Tom) but rather from the sense that the film is writer-director Bertolucci’s personal fantasy, wrapped up in the pretty packaging of art-house cinema.

Whilst Tyler is undeniably ravishing her contribution is simply her beauty and whilst the Tuscan setting is of a equal calibre, Bertolucci’s representation of the artist’s commune complete with a dying writer (Jeremy Irons) is almost laughable in its pretentiousness but largely uninteresting with no characterizations that appeals or dynamic to the proceedings.

With his most notorious film about sex Last Tango In Paris (197) the director managed to create a succès de scandale. Stealing Beauty doesn't have that film's dubious reputation but it is also frightfully dull.

 

Want something different?