Luna (1979)

It is a performances centric movie

In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

The first half of this film is a brilliant story about a teenage boy hopelessly lost in a world not of his own making. Torn from familiar surroundings with only his distant mother for support, he turns to drugs to find some kind of "comfort" in his life. However, the second half quickly delves into a bizarre relationship of incest between the boy and his mother. Granted, it was originally to cure him of his drug habit, but she soon begins to like it, and that's when all hell seems to break loose. My rating of 7 stars is simply because the first half was so incredibly wonderful (great plot, good acting, gorgeous Italian scenery). The second half isn't without its charms, too, and the back-and-forth "I love you, I hate you" relationship between the mother and son works well... IF you can overlook the fact that it is, indeed, a mother and son.

There's some really heavy themes in this, most notably and controversially incest between the mother, an opera singer (the whole movie is quite operatic in the setting of Rome) and her son, a teenager slowly being sucked into a world of drugs as he slips away from his mother. It doesn't cross the line all the way, instead hovers back and forth between a loss they've shared and a promise of being together at any means, albeit not in the conventional sense.Lovely, epic music lacquers the scenery and intensity between the parent, who finds it a duty to be closer to the son thats torn between guilt and anger. Note though, that the physical incest is not as strong as the theme of emotional incest, which is usually the more pervasive of the two. It's main focus seems to be the mending of a mother-son relationship when both mother and son are wrecks to begin with. This film is quite the rarity. I bought my DVD at a garage sale. Might be Italian though, the wordings' are a bit wrecked on mine, but a splendid cover art, it's why I even noticed it underneath a clutter.It's quite a heavy subject matter to tackle, plenty for the psychoanalytical of us to ponder over. Quite typical of Bertolucci to polarise his viewers. I would agree that the film is a task especially its beginning but its fruitful with much symmetry composing the parent/child relationship regarding the inexplicable quandaries of love and sexuality. Oedipal complexities are never fully explored physically thankfully, it doesn't go the distance like "Spanking the Monkey" did but what isn't shown is much more primal and imperative than what is shown. I've read many stinging criticisms of the film and its incomparable director of trying to shock his way through the auds. But I honestly am too blind or refractory for lack of a better word to subscribe to that.Bertolucci has a fond place in my heart. As simple as this sounds, he makes films that are memorable and have something to tell us - usually about politics and human sexuality. This film is one of his earlier works and its absolutely gorgeous. Speaking of gorgeous, Jill Clayburgh shows why she's so unsung, in this she plays a woman who's so respected to everyone but yet in shambles inside. I would love to see her in more and thank god I now have something to supplant her as Ally Mcbeal's mom.

Luna has never been on video or DVD in America, and seems to have vanished after its theatrical release. Too bad, I would like to see it again, even though my memories of it aren't very favorable. A point should be clarified, although it is a spoiler. The film is about incestuous attraction---no genuine act of incest actually occurs. When Jill Clayburgh finally tries to get her son into bed, he rejects her and slaps her around. That ends that. If some of the other viewers here were unnerved by the depiction of incestuous desire, how would they have felt if the act had actually occurred??? The film was also disappointing to have the kid be an obnoxious heroin junkie--that works against the film in a big way. Perhaps the film will yet resurface someday, and we can evaluate it again.

Bertolucci's strength lies in the camera work. This film is one of the most beautiful I have seen, definitely on the top 50 of beautiful films. It often looks like watching a painting, with great harmony of colors.Bertolucci, like in many of his other films, take parts both from heavy art house cinema and mainstream Hollywood cinema. The characters are very much Hollywood, especially in the horrible first 30 minutes. The beginning (except the scenes from the house at the sea) is simply awful. Again, like in other B. films, the beginning is too rapid, unrealistic and uninteresting, an, imho disturbing, element typical for the film noir during the 1930/40s, but it's even worse than that since the dialog as well is awful during that part.After that, the movie is very captivating and impressive. Also sexually provocative at times. Sometimes twisted but in a relaxed way. Definitely worth seeing.