RanchoTuVu In 1938 fascist Italy a newly married man takes his bride on a honeymoon to Paris. He's the son of intellectuals, his father is in an insane asylum, while his bride is middle class bourgeois. The situation sums up his predicament, that he's a bit of a sensitive intellectual who is caught up in Mussolini's violent political culture with a pretty new bride who seems oblivious to it all. It appears he joins the Fascists to get ahead in society but his allegiance is put to the test after he's given the assignment to assassinate on of his ex- professors, a disaffected intellectual who moved to Paris to escape the fascists. Thus the honeymoon takes a turn to the ominous side. The story in Paris unfolds, leading to the event taking place on a snowy winter afternoon in a forest. His target and the target's wife suspected him all along but befriended him, with the ex-prof's wife even seducing him. Thus the title refers to those who lived under fascism without necessarily embracing it, merely going along with the current in order to try to succeed within a brutal system and not be arrested, with the system testing this individual's commitment to the cause. Mussolini is overthrown towards the end of the film, and the protagonist leaves his apartment to watch the regime's fall and try to switch over to the non-fascists who comb the streets looking for collaborators to execute. Bertolucci explores Italy's fascist past by portraying how it played out with a classic cowardly non- protagonist who fails to rise to the occasion.

willcundallreview Films that double as if they are art on a canvas are some of the richest and most beautiful things that can come out of cinema, Il Conformista or The Conformist in English is exactly that. It not only has a very good story but in general looks stunning, the film is known for its camera angles but also its use of colour and the general production design that also catches the eye. From Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci comes this excellent piece and it is essential for any budding director or cinematographer that they witness the skill level put into this. The film is basically all about Fascism and shows a man sent on a mission to take out a former professor of his who is too anti-fascist for the regime of Italy in the 1930's. The film sounds much like a spy thriller and although in ways he is a spy, this is not all about exciting action, no this is dramatic and thrilling but does not require shootouts to entertain, it uses artistry, a solid script and characters who could be studied for many an hour.Marcello Clerici is the main person in this movie and is just as Fascist as your next Fascist, this man is willing to give things up to carry out the mission set out for him and important things that come his way in life do not stand a chance against his belief in normality and Fascism. The most intriguing character is for me not Clerici but the professor's wife Anna who is shrouded in mystery, we never truly know much about her but the way she is used in the story is fascinating. It uses many different people to get the story across whether within his friend, his Fascist overseer of sorts or his soon to be wife Giulia and that is really what makes this complex.It is impossible not to talk about the way this movie looks after you have seen it with Bertolucci and cinematographer Vittorio Storaro creating something truly remarkable and although this could easily be called pointless angles, they actually do convey emotion or set the tone of the scene that is at hand. This film could be also get called pretentious but really it is not, many a film can use artistic elements in a way which is begging for awards but this feels different though. It actually tells a story alongside the beauty on the technical side of things and Bertolucci makes full use of that to create an interesting but also good looking piece of cinema.As for the actors well it is of course Jean-Louis Trintignant as Clerici who is fantastic among all involved but do not take anything away from other cast. Stefania Sandrelli as Giulia is good and although at first can feel annoying starts to grow on you as the movie progresses and becomes a well worked character. I particularly liked the character of Manganiello played by Gastone Moschin who as the overseer I mentioned is just a great character and one that usually turns up in some major scenes of the film.So The Conformist, adapted from the 1951 novel of the same name and given an artistically wonderful showing on the big screen, having never read the novel at the time of viewing I cannot say whether it is a true adaption but it does not matter to me if a book is made a little differently on the big screen. Bertolucci nailed this one and this could be said to be his best ever work, what stops it from being perfect is maybe some parts of the beginning and it can have a slow pace at a few places but nevertheless this movie is excellent and one that is just a fine piece, finely done.

Phobon Nika What is it, where is it, how will it affect me? In a 1938 politically unstable Europe, a weak-willed Italian man becomes a fascist flunky who goes abroad to arrange the assassination of his old teacher, now a political dissident. Il Conformista is a work of art that's as close to flawless as one can get. It's dapper, sophisticated, sexy, compelling and dearly cosmopolitan, whilst being metaphorical and gripping. And, moreover, for a subject matter than little of the audience will have any personal or sentimental connection with, it's deeply powerful and engrossing. Il Conformista paints the portrait of a bohemian, artistic and edging closer-to rapture Europe yet still highlights through intricate narrative, an in-depth character study of the weak willed, the distressed and the deluded a Europe that is on a political tether. In its parades and its dances, through its screams and its silence, Il Conformista is a masterpiece that connects the now and then, conflicting desires, oozing style and a confused culture in more colour, more grit and more eloquence than the proclaimed greats of yonder years ever managed to. The climactic ending is a highlight with an almost perpetual aftertaste, where the conformist himself (Jean-Louis Trintignant) undertakes the assassination of his former mentor in a misty, dimly lit wood, a setting to quench the thirst of Arthur Conan-Doyle, as the victim's wife, a former lover, screams bitterly. Our conformist relaxes, his hat shadowing his face, his eyes glinting with thoughts of a million facets pouring over them. Il Conformista is littered with endless examples of seductive cinematography, bold and inviting colour schemes, elaborate musical ventures and stylistically superior heights than anything I've ever seen. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, Il Conformista is a thriller, and it certainly is thrilling, to say the least. To an impatient viewer, Il Conformista has whole other arsenal dimension of scenes that focus on deceit, murder, ill-intention and metaphorical dissidence. To a historian, the way that the portrayed era's political climate is capitalised on and exploited for dramatic effect is staggeringly remarkable. And lastly, to an artist, Bertolucci's genius behind the camera and his steady, wise hand in directing the lighting is second to none.

lasttimeisaw Bertolucci is another wunderkind in the industry, at the age of 30, his fourth feature film, THE CONFORMIST has been proved to be a timeless classic, which I feel privileged to watch it now for the very first time.Tilting camera angle, impeccable shots paralleling the moving train and zooming in from the external side of the window, sensual hues, cubistic buildings, punctilious light and shade deployment (Professor Quadri, the hunchbacked man being introduced by his silhouette), fluid ballroom dancing sequences, the bleak and cold-hearted manslaughter in a wintry woodland, all emerge as consecutive surprises and gustos along its non-linear narrative. Marcello (Trintignant), a newly-recruited fascist member in Rome, is assigned for an assassination of his old professor Quadri (Tarascio), who dwells in Paris now with her young wife Anna (Sanda), the film hops back and forth episodically in recounting the newly-wed Marcello's matrimony life with Giulia (Sandrelli), a petit bourgeois trophy wife; their honeymoon to Paris with a clandestine aim to carry out the task until Marcello compellingly falls for Anna; meanwhile Bertolucci allocates episodes to sort out Marcello's personal lives, his attachment with his amicable blind friend Italo (Quaglio), his drug-addicted mother (Milly) and lunatic father (Addobbati); but underneath his placid and gentile veneer, lies an unfading quandary, stems from his encounter with a pedophile (Clémenti) in his childhood and his latent homosexuality which pulses him to a perpetual and professed seeking of normalcy. Trintignant is exceedingly under-appreciated in his sophisticated and self-constrained portrayal of a man put in contradiction with almost anything around him, perfectly tallies with the political message of the film, a stooge, put-upon in order to rectify his own weakness, indiscriminately clutches any straw to obey conformability, while in the end, a sense of loss and disparagement is his own bitter fruit. Sanda and Sandrelli are stunning in their own distinctive beauties, the former is resolute, swinging both ways and emanating the like-a-moth-to-a-flame fatalism; the latter imbues a more traditional feminine allure with little clue about what's in her husband's mind. Also it is noteworthy to give credit to Georges Delerue, who produced a spellbound score underlining the varying tenors of Marcello's state of mind. THE CONFORMIST is a pièce de résistancer with its idiosyncratic aesthetic charisma to crown Bertolucci as the most important auteur in Italian cinema after his illustrious progenitors!