A weak-willed Italian man (Jean-Louis Trintignant) becomes a fascist flunky who goes abroad to arrange the assassination of his old teacher (Enzo Tarascio),now a political dissident.

The film is said to be a case study in the psychology of fascism: Marcello Clerici is a bureaucrat dehumanized by a dysfunctional upper class family and a childhood sexual trauma. Political philosopher Takis Fotopoulos calls the film "a beautiful portrait of this psychological need to conform and be 'normal' at the social level, in general, and the political level, in particular."

I loved it. I think it was very symbolic of not just fascism, but politics and humanity in general. There really is a desire to conform, and normality varies based on when and where you live. Political ideas might seem weird in one place and not another. The same with morality. Could a society exist where the removal of your friends is just a part of life? Sure. (The Mafia does it.)

Bernardo Bertolucci's stunning early-1970s classic looks absolutely beautiful nearly forty years later. It tells the story of a fascist in 1930s Italy who is assigned to root out and assassinate anti-fascists. As the story develops, we learn that a childhood event played a large role in shaping this man's perception of himself, and that the life he is leading is largely a lie.

The story Bertolucci tells is odd and compelling, but what kept me glued to the television screen was the film's mesmerizing visual style. Bertolucci collaborated with cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, and it's not an exaggeration to say that they create some of the most beautiful images I've ever seen in a film. One might expect Bertolucci to adopt a sombre color palette for telling such a gloomy story, but that's not the case. On the contrary, he opts for lush colors, striking contrasts, and stylized lighting to create a slightly surrealistic environment that's one small step removed from reality as we know it.

A truly remarkable movie.

Grade: A+

Technically this was a pretty good movie--especially in the set design and cinematography. However, despite it being a pretty film, there is a strange coldness about the film and the characters--particularly the male lead. Now, to some extent this is GOOD, as he is a cold and repressed individual, but so often he just seemed to be walking through the film and going through the motions. It made you wonder WHY would the Italian Fascist secret police want HIM to work for them? I knew they were pretty inept in how they fought the war, but it really didn't make sense WHAT they saw in him. The same goes for his wife. She seems to love him desperately but he's such a cold fish. With just a little more humanity, he would have been more believable. That is because the horrible truth about so many of these cold blooded killers in Italy and Germany is that EXTERNALLY they seemed like good men--their "normalness" makes the evil they did so scary and inexplicable. Nice family men doing evil--that's more what I wished I had seen here.