Before the Revolution

Bernardo Bertolucci, Italy, 1964, 115 minutes

It may be hard to believe but Bertolucci was only 22 when he made Before the Revolution, a film that can easily be regarded as a landmark in political cinema. Heavily influenced - especially in aesthetic terms - by the pioneers of the French New Wave, Godard and Resnais, it's made in b&w including many out of focus camera shots , perhaps conveying the nebulous state of mind of its main character.

Fabrizio (Francesco Barilli) is a young intellectual with a typical bourgeois background who, having flirted with Marxist ideology, faces the obvious political dilemma which stems from such a contradiction. But his ambivalence is parallely transfered from the political to the emotional level as he falls lbr his aunt Gina (Adriana Asti), at the expense of his fiancee Clelia (Cristie Pariset).

The film includes scenes of serene beauty and acute political reflection, such as the encounter with a decadent aristocrat in a misty riverbank, the endless conversations between Fabrizio and his friend, or the scene in the opera where he finally succumbs to his bourgeois background. Barilli is superb as the confused and emotionally fickle Fabrizio, Asti is equally astonishing as the neurotic aunt, while the brief but sublime presence of Cristie Pariset as Fabrizio's fiancee confirms that Bertolucci is above all an aesthete. Incredibly mature cinema enhanced by the wonderful music of Verdi and Morricone.

Review by Spiros Gangas
Taken from EUFS Programme 1992-93