Film

New York Film Festival: 'The Last Mistress'

By Daniel Montgomery

Sunday, October 7, 2007

Written and directed by French filmmaker Catherine Breillat, from a novel by Jules-Amédée Barbey d’Aurevilly, ‘The Last Mistress’ isn’t so much a romance as it is a tragedy about dependency. Spanish seductress Vellini (Asia Argento) and French playboy Ryno (Fu’ad Ait Aattou) are lovers who cannot separate from one another, and have been drawn back together over and over again for ten years. What joins them is not exactly love, and it consumes them.

The story takes place in 18th Century France, a time of whispers, rumors, and innuendos. It opens with an older married couple, aristocrats discussing the shameful indiscretions of Ryno, who is set to marry the pure, chaste Hermangarde (Roxane Mesquida). Hermangarde’s grandmother (Claude Sarraute) approves of the match, in no small part because she too is smitten with him; she finds him handsome, exciting, and sincere, especially after she hears the story of his romance with Vellini.

It began as hatred and developed into love. When I say that she’s in his blood, I mean it literally; in one scene, she voraciously drinks from his wound. But there’s a violent turn, a point on which their entire relationship pivots: They have a daughter, and the daughter is suddenly killed. The love between them is thereafter replaced by grief.

The daughter’s funeral is the most important scene of the film; as the girl’s body burns, Vellini and Ryno give into desperate passion, but the sex is a cry of despair, not pleasure. In this moment, their connection to each other shifts. From this point forward, Ryno struggles to escape from it. Vellini relentlessly draws him back. And so it goes for the remainder of their relationship.

Asia Argento, who appears in another festival selection this year, ‘Go Go Tales’, gives a breakthrough performance as Vellini. The actress is a striking beauty, but it’s her emotional rather than physical nakedness that is the most remarkable. She creates a woman of great sensuality, which warps into ugly dependency. Eventually, her obsession is such that it resembles drug addiction more than love or lust. Argento does not shy away from what is frightful and dark within Vellini, and her commitment gives the film its emotional thrust.

If I describe Ryno as rather bland, perhaps that is merely a description and not a criticism. The actor, Fu’ad Ait Aattou, making his film debut, conveys little beyond his androgynous beauty. As the film progresses, that seems more and more a conscious choice. Ryno describes how his love for Vellini waned, and likens his plight to a creature that impales itself through the heart in the ecstacy of pain. There is little left of him; his vitality drained, he is a ghost of his former self.

There are many sex scenes in the film. They’re raw, explicit, and necessary. Through their sexuality, the film reveals who they become over time. We observe how Ryno is languid, quiet, dispassionate in their later liaisons. He appears resigned to his fate as her lover, long past the point of having any love left for her. She on the other hand is primal, her wails of pleasure replaced by cries of agony. Their last encounter of the film is especially sad. Her moans of orgasm sound as though she is trying to stamp out her sorrow, to fill herself with some feeling other than loss.

When ‘The Last Mistress’ is over, we leave not feeling that we have experienced a romantic story. We do not receive it with celebratory applause, but with a mournful sigh. And we have sympathy for all involved.

For More Information, Schedule and Ticket Information on the 45th New York Film Festival click Official Webiste