The House Next Door

By Kevin B. Lee

[Editor's Note: This is the latest entry in House contributor Kevin B. Lee's Shooting Down Pictures, a record of his ongoing quest to see every title on the list of the 1000 Greatest Films compiled by They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?]

_____________________
Opera singer Jill Clayburgh is sucked into a sexually charged pas de deux with her rebellious drug addict teenage son after she whisks him off to Italy following her husband’s untimely death. It may be that Italian arthouse incest movies just aren’t up my alley, but between this and my viewing of Viscconti’s Vaghe Stella dell’Orsa [TSPDT #718] I see a lot of cinematic talent stumbling to elevate the salaciousness of its subject, resulting in much incoherent hysteria. Vittorio Storaro’s swirling tracking shots characteristically generate an energetic atmosphere, though their fluidness clashes with the Cassavetean awkwardness of the dysfunctional mother-son dialogues. For Bertolucci, the story falls within a career-long template of characters wallowing in bourgeois decadence leading to a search for a remedy, whether through Marxism (Before the Revolution, The Last Emperor, The Dreamers), non-Western cultural immersion (The Sheltering Sky, Little Buddha) or family revelation (Stealing Beauty, Luna). Here he seems less concerned with weaving a coherent narrative than in savoring isolated moments, whether sensory (a beautifully choreographed opera sequence; the arrival of mother and son in Italy in black limo heralded by an armada of skateborders) or sensational (boy stabs his arm with a fork in lieu of a needle to inject his fix; mom jerks off son to help ease his withdrawal). A mess, but it has its moments.
_____________________________________
To read the rest of the article at Shooting Down Pictures, click here.