lazarillo The good news is this movie features some gratuitous nudity from the beauteous Italian actress Ornella Muti. The bad news is it features far, far more gratuitous nudity from the not-so-beauteous and quite corpulent French actor Gerard Depardieu. This is another slice of Italo-Gallic insanity from director Marco Ferreti. It somewhat resembles his later, more famous film "Ciao, Monkey", but instead of a baby monkey, Depardieu's character has a chubby human baby. But like the monkey in the later film, the male baby is largely a metaphor for the perpetual narcissistic infantilism of Depardieu's character.Depardieu plays a single father whose feminist wife leaves him alone with their small baby. This doesn't slow down his inveterate womanizing,however, and he soon starts an affair with a young daycare teacher (Muti). It's a little disturbing, especially by modern-day standards, the way Depardieu and Muti engage in naked foreplay pretty much right in front of the baby (although they do have the decency to go into the next room to actually screw). Children that young have little memory, however, so I'm sure the infant actor was much less traumatized by Depardiue's bloated nude body than I was. Anyway, there's a lot of melodrama involving the Depardieu character's continuing compulsive infidelities and his feelings of male irrelevancy in the face of feminism and female sexual liberation. In fact, if the male organ with its insatiable appetites, extreme insecurities, and fickle nature somehow became an actual person it would be just like Depardieu's character in this movie. (So basically, Depardieu here plays a big chubby dick).As other reviewers have said,the end of this movie is quite shocking-- Depardieu is harpooned by Captain Ahab and he drags him, his ship, and his entire crew to the bottom of the ocean. . . Oh wait, that was "Moby Dick". Well, the end of this movie is even more shocking, especially if you're male. Depardieu does give a very good performance, so I certainly would recommend this to his fans. Muti is not as good (but, oh man, is she beautiful), and this film really marks her transition to the kind of daring art films she is best known for (and without which she'd be a forgotten Italian version of Brooke Shields today) And whatever you can say about Marco Ferreti's films, they're definitely NOT dull. This not great, but check it out if it sounds interesting to you.

writers_reign About two reels into this merde Gerard Depardieu takes an electric carving knife to a salami. In the world of Marco Ferrari this is the epitome of subtlety; after spending about two thirds of the movie totally and full-frontally naked Depardieu, in search of an encore, takes the same electric carving knife and removes his own penis. That's all, folks. I've said it before and I'll say it again, people actually pay good money to watch rubbish like this and actors - mostly French - who should know better lined up to appear in Ferrari movies, none more often than Michel Piccoli, who played in at least three. Here, in addition to Depardieu and Piccoli Nathalie Baye also makes an appearance though mercifully brief - for her career, not the viewer. Ferrari seems to be saying ... er ... anything you like and if you're a pseud and/or Academic you're gonna love it. Otherwise there's always the Texas ChainSaw Massacre for those who don't understand, like, or can't deal with REAL movies.

debblyst Gérard (26 year-old G.Depardieu in a star-making, César-nominated performance) is the he-man single father of a little baby boy who meets carefree, sensuous Valérie (ravishingly beautiful 21 year-old Ornella Muti). They feel instantly attracted to each other, she moves in with him on the spot, they fall in love, she fancies playing stepmother to the baby, he gets jealous, she wants freedom, he gets enraged, she no longer fancies constant love-making, he gets desperate, they quarrel and fight, and things disintegrate until the totally shocking finale knocks you OUT!This film was banned mostly everywhere outside Europe, including the US - and you won't find it in VHS or DVD for sale on Amazon, or for rent in your local store. I caught it on Cinemax Cable, late night. It's a step FURTHER than Ferreri's previous "La Grande Bouffe" in shocking power and sexual frankness, and so I've warned you. In this film, Ferreri questions issues like "couple", "love", "sex", "relationship", "family", "woman" and especially "man". He tells a love story exclusively from a macho point of view: the male characters (primitive, childish Depardieu, phony Piccoli, stupid Salvatori) are shamelessly misogynous and speak out their minds with no censorship or civilized "varnish" -- sensibility my a**. Gérard eats, drinks, bites, sucks, spits, burps, shouts, f***s, harasses, fights, you name it - his bodily needs rule. And most of all, Gérard wonders what is the purpose of having a penis in women lib's times. The male organ is very much the center of the film, visually as well as metaphorically, representing men's questionable appendix in a world (Europe in the 70s) where family, marriage and male-female roles were being seriously questioned. In Gérard's character's own words, as he holds his son's penis in his hand: "All we are left with is the right to go around sporting one of these. But now they want to take away our pride in having them - we're not even allowed that anymore! So what are we supposed to do with them now?"Depardieu was soon after to become France's biggest star since Delon/Belmondo. You can really think of no other actor more suitable to portray this childish-gross-larger-than-life he-man than Gérard, with his imposing figure and shameless physicality, total emotional assessment and unbelievable boldness - he's completely naked most of the time, is shown in explicit masturbation and has some 2 or 3 full erections, one of them in close-up, no body double!! (This was way before Viagra, mind you, and before Oshima, Bellocchio, Von Trier, Breillat, Larry Clark etc.). He was very probably the first major Western star to be shown like "that" in a non-porn film. The final scene in which he finally finds a way to "deal" with his manhood is one the most shocking EVER done.Ornella Muti's nude beauty is also largely available here in some daring scenes, though her face is perhaps even sexier than her body - the combination of her catlike, dreamy green eyes, full lips, dark long hair, that lovely gap in her front teeth and the naughty girl-woman expression is very much a promise of liberated but life-changing sex."La Dernière Femme" ("The Last Woman") belongs to Italian director Marco Ferreri's great films, dealing with some of his favorite themes: destruction of male-female stereotypes, flesh/sex/ physiological urges as symbols of life and mortality, physical disability/decay/deformity/mutilation , all of them treated with highly acid sarcasm, a touch of surrealism, another of depression and a lot of dark humor. Ferreri belongs to a very selected group of rebel, risqué and subversively poetic filmmakers, along with Buñuel, Pasolini, Fassbinder, Portuguese João César Monteiro and very few others. A one-of-a-kind, he attracted great European stars who worked for him over and over again (Mastroianni, Tognazzi, Noiret, Piccoli, Salvatori, Depardieu, Girardot, Deneuve, Vlady, Schygulla, Muti, Romy Schneider etc etc) because they knew they would be given offbeat, once-in-a-lifetime roles. Sadly, chances are you won't probably see a copy of "La Dernière Femme" anywhere, unless you look really hard for it. It contains extremely daring scenes, including Depardieu and Ornella having sex in bed with the baby around; nude Depardieu having his nude infant baby explore (I mean, REALLY explore!) Ornella's nude body; and another in which he proudly grabs his baby's willy and points it right at her bemused face. But don't be mislead: beyond the pleasure of shocking his audience, Ferreri firmly shoots us his uncomfortable questions: what is a modern man to do with/without his penis in (post-)feminist times? What the heck do women WANT from men, after all? If you thought "Sex and the CIty" you're galaxies away from "La Dernière Femme".If you are a Ferreri fan and liked "La Grande Bouffe", "The Ape Woman", "The Queen Bee" or "Tales of Ordinary Madness", you should REALLY try to see this one - I guarantee you will NEVER see anything like it!! Not for the prude, humorless, conventional or romantic.

luminous_luciano This movie (maybe more so than Le Futur Est Femme) immortalizes the young Ornella Muti as the ultimate dream woman... as far as sultry ravenous brunettes go anyhow!!! Mayhaps because there is no competition here for her (Carole Perle? Nice name but...) unlike in Le Futur... where Ornella is actually loved by co-star Hanna Schygulla... Here the same is true, as her co-star here also loves her and may in fact love her too much... However, unlike Hanna, Gérard Depardieu fights the attraction to the utmost degree... (And THAT is the true reason why this film was banned by the U.S. censors - the way G.D. goes about to finally purge his desires for her is quite... unbelievable to say the least!)The mature Ornella Muti is now even better in my estimation... But for a wider audience of woman-lovers, this young Venus-like Ornella is the one and only. She was, in the ten years that followed, constantly in the top ten of the most beautiful women in the world... Too bad her acting talent wasn't up to par...I will respectfully disagree with the other three here -so far- and state my belief that Marco Ferreri is *not* on the same level as Fassbinder or Bunuel. But he and João César Monteiro are certainly "the next two" I'd say!Note also the presence of one Michel Piccoli in this one - he who despite being ''just a guy'', balding, not all that fit, not that great an actor himself, managed to co-star often with some of the most beautiful leading ladies in Europe - Romy Schneider, Catherine Deneuve (of course - une compatriote...!), Dany Robin (une autre compatriote!), Sabine Azéma (et une autre!), Martine Carol (et encore une autre!), Ornella here... Proof that it is good to be at the right place, at the right time...And to the eight who find this "not useful" - a review would be useful.A comment is just a comment. Ferreri fans...