The Last Mistress
Catherine Breillat's The Last Mistress (2008), which opened in New York at the IFC Center last summer, starred Asia Argento and Fu'ad Ait Aattou as ill-fated lovers in a brilliantly filmed version of Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly's 1851 novel Une Vieille Maitresse (aka An Old Mistress). D'Aurevilly was a minor French writer and newspaper critic whose career spanned the Second Republic and Second Empire of Napoleon III. 
Like many of his other works, Une Vieille Maitress presents characters in a vice-like grip of passion who are drawn to excess, criminality, and self destruction with an almost-supernatural obsession. For Breillat (Fat Girl, Romance, Anatomy of Hell), the period-costumes and mannerisms of d'Aurevilly's novel seemed more liberating than restrictive, and The Last Mistress was her most balanced and human work. Likewise, playing the outcast Spanish mistress Vellini opened new possibilities for Argento, whose carnality--while central to her on and off-screen image--is usually handled awkwardly by lesser directors (including her father). 
In surrendering herself to Breillat, however, Argento displayed the emotional depths of her talents as an actor and took the film to heights it would not have reached without her. Co-starring with Argento and the fey Ait Aattou was Roxane Mesquida as the demure bride Hermangarde and Yolande Moreau as La comtesse d’Artelles, the spiritual matriarch of the film. Shot by Greek cinematographer Giorgos Arvanitis (Romance, Anatomy of Hell) and edited by Pascale Chavance (Fat Girl, Sex is Comedy), The Last Mistress was ultimately about the complex banality of doomed love-triangles (in any era) and will stand as one of the most complete films of the decade. Old lovers, literally, will haunt your dreams after watching this film.
Catherine Breillat's The Last Mistress (2008), which opened in New York at the IFC Center last summer, starred Asia Argento and Fu'ad Ait Aattou as ill-fated lovers in a brilliantly filmed version of Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly's 1851 novel Une Vieille Maitresse (aka An Old Mistress). D'Aurevilly was a minor French writer and newspaper critic whose career spanned the Second Republic and Second Empire of Napoleon III. 
Like many of his other works, Une Vieille Maitress presents characters in a vice-like grip of passion who are drawn to excess, criminality, and self destruction with an almost-supernatural obsession. For Breillat (Fat Girl, Romance, Anatomy of Hell), the period-costumes and mannerisms of d'Aurevilly's novel seemed more liberating than restrictive, and The Last Mistress was her most balanced and human work. Likewise, playing the outcast Spanish mistress Vellini opened new possibilities for Argento, whose carnality--while central to her on and off-screen image--is usually handled awkwardly by lesser directors (including her father). 
In surrendering herself to Breillat, however, Argento displayed the emotional depths of her talents as an actor and took the film to heights it would not have reached without her. Co-starring with Argento and the fey Ait Aattou was Roxane Mesquida as the demure bride Hermangarde and Yolande Moreau as La comtesse d’Artelles, the spiritual matriarch of the film. Shot by Greek cinematographer Giorgos Arvanitis (Romance, Anatomy of Hell) and edited by Pascale Chavance (Fat Girl, Sex is Comedy), The Last Mistress was ultimately about the complex banality of doomed love-triangles (in any era) and will stand as one of the most complete films of the decade. Old lovers, literally, will haunt your dreams after watching this film.
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