Luna (1979)
BDRip 720p | MKV | 1280 x 720 | x264 @ 2560 Kbps | 2h 22mn | 3,25 Gb
Audio: English AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps + 2 Commentary tracks | Subs: English
Genre: Drama | Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
BDRip 720p | MKV | 1280 x 720 | x264 @ 2560 Kbps | 2h 22mn | 3,25 Gb
Audio: English AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps + 2 Commentary tracks | Subs: English
Genre: Drama | Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
Recently widowed American opera diva Caterina takes her teenaged son Joe with her on a long singing tour to Italy. Absorbed in her hectic work in various Verdi operas around Rome, Caterina is soon shocked to discover that her troubled and lonely son has become a heroin addict. Her desperate attempts to wean the youth off the drug result in an incestuous relationship, but also in a possibility to reunite Joe – maybe even herself – with his real father, whose existence she has kept a secret from him.
Bernardo Bertolucci died in Rome on 26 November 2018, at the age of 77 of lung cancer.
I found La Luna to be a wonderful, haunting film. Bertolucci has an artists eye for locale but it is the charged drama between mother and son and the strong, committed performances of the two lead players that give the movie its power.Barry's performance was transcendent and, had I seen the film in 1979, I would have been sure he was on the cusp of a brilliant career. Was La Luna an albatross or did he become too self-conscious as he grew up? I gather the film bombed. The New York Times list of 1000 best films does not include it-an inexplicable oversight. Perhaps its graphic portrayal of a taboo subject made it a hot potato. Or perhaps it was that some of the scenes are a high-wire act: the scene where Joe licks the dirt off his mothers face is at once touching and erotic but in a different frame of mind one could find it ludicrous and might well have been greeted with hoots at a theater showing. No matter. I'm glad I found it.
(Enlargeable)
Commentaries:
- Audio Commentary by Star Matthew Barry and Filmmaker Elijah Drenner
- Audio Commentary by Filmmaker/Writer Howard S. Berger and Mondo Digital's Nathaniel Thompson