The Last Mistress

Product Description

In this provocative romance, Asia Argento stars as the feisty Spanish mistress who will stop at nothing to be in the arms of her forbidden lover.

• Starring: Asia Argento, Fu'ad Ait Aattou
• Directed by: Catherine Breillat
• Runtime: 1 hour 55 minutes
• Studio: IFC Film

Product Details

• Synopsis: In this provocative romance, Asia Argento stars as the feisty Spanish mistress who will stop at nothing to be in the arms of her forbidden lover.
• Starring: Asia Argento, Fu'ad Ait Aattou
• Supporting actors: Roxane Mesquida
• Directed by: Catherine Breillat
• Genre: Drama, Romance
• Runtime: 1 hour 55 minutes
• Studio: IFC Film
• ASIN: B001QFHT84 (Rental) and B001Q01IPO (Purchase)
• Rights ; Requirements
• Rental rights: 48 hour viewing period Details
• Purchase rights: Stream instantly and download to 2 locations. Details
• Compatible with: Mac and Windows PC online viewing, compatible instant streaming devices, TiVo DVRs. System requirements
• Format: Amazon Instant Video (streaming online video and digital download)
• Theatrical Release Information
• Production Company: Flach Film, CB Films, France 3 Cinéma, Studio Canal, Buskin Film, Canal+, Centre National de la Cinématographie (CNC), TPS Star, Région Ile-de-France

Technical Details

• Production Company: Flach Film, CB Films, France 3 Cinéma, Studio Canal, Buskin Film, Canal+, Centre National de la Cinématographie (CNC), TPS Star, Région Ile-de-France

 

The Last Mistress

 

Customer Reviews

The French title of "The Last Mistress" could be more accurately translated as "A Former Mistress," or even "An Elderly Mistress"--since the courtesan Vellini is a then-considered-ripe 36 when the movie begins. It is based on a novel by Jules-Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly published in 1851, and its period sensibility is as exquisitely accurate as the movie's costumes and sets. This is a portrait of a peculiar marital system. Well-bred French girls were educated in convent boarding schools, primarily in piety, needlework, and social graces. At the age of 17 or so, they returned to their families, who quickly arranged marriages for them. After marriage they were expected to learn how to run a comfortable home and to adopt their husbands' opinions and tastes--but not much else, unless they possessed enough brains and initiative to give themselves intellectual educations.
Meanwhile, well-bred French men of all ages were permitted to enjoy themselves in the demi-monde, drinking, gambling, and visiting courtesans. "The Last Mistress" shows the likely consequences of one such young man marrying one such young woman.
The rake Ryno de Marigny has gambled away his fortune, a much more serious drawback to marriage than his by-then-ten-year relationship with Vellini. However, Hermingarde, the lovely, supremely innocent, aristocratic, and wealthy bride he chooses, is under the sole guardianship of her grandmother, who rather fancies Ryno. As she tells a meddlesome friend, the girls of their own generation grew up in the time of de Laclos (the author of _Les Liasions Dangereuses_). They married rakes and were quite happy, so why should Hermingarde not be happy with Ryno?
At the beginning of the film, the meddlesome friend sends her husband (who, unbeknownst to his wife, was an occasional client of Vellini's well after his own marriage) to tell Vellini to let go of Ryno. The two stage a last farewell--as it develops, only one of many in their long relationship. Vellini tells Ryno that he will return to her, as he always has. Two days before his church wedding, Ryno confesses the story of the entire relationship to his fiancée's enchanted grandmother (who is comfortably swilling port) in a one-night narrative that occupies most of the film. He swears that it's all over.
The next scene is Ryno's wedding . . . so viewers may wonder, why is Ryno wearing a wedding ring on his right hand (the European custom) during the long, one-night narrative? In the 1830s the French state required a legal marriage at a registry office, but not a church wedding. Social and Catholic/religious convention required a church wedding, but this did not meet the legal requirement. Therefore most couples had a very small legal wedding at a registry office, then a church wedding about three days later. The couple did not cohabit till after the church wedding . . . still, Ryno seems to be already legally married when he tells his story.
Vellini is Spanish--exotic, tempestuous, amorous, and prone to wearing clinging Moorish-inspired boudoir outfits and puffing cigarillos. (The movie opens with a version of "Les Folies d'Espagne," an extremely popular base for instrumental variations in the 18th century. "Folie" translates to madness, wildness, extravagance, folly; and of course "d'Espagne" means Spanish.) Vellini's tantrums and occasional violence seem rather tiresome to modern eyes, but for some, represented an ideal mistress of the period--Carmen is a similar character. For men moving in a polite society full of prudish, docile, quiet, conventional women, wild threats and mild dagger cuts were exciting. Then there was all that hot-blooded passion . . . "The Last Mistress" is highly sexually explicit. (I constantly found myself thinking "yes, that's physically _possible_, but definitely not convenient or comfortable.") Ryno's very full red lips, as well as his immaculate dress, make him an 1830s fashion plate. His following his impulses--whether it's to have a wealthy bride, a passionate mistress, or both--seems excusable, because really, he doesn't have much else to do with his life either.
"The Last Mistress" is not just an exquisite historical costume drama: It contains some real food for thought.

At its core, The Last Mistress raises the age old question, What constitutes marriage? The long term earthy sexual bonding of two people or a societally regulated legal arrangement. Hence, Ryno and Vellini, two people orbitting the gravity of their sexual bond, sometimes close and sometimes far but always moving around the same center. Yet their self imposed social norms and economic necessities disturb but never break that bond.
I bought The Last Mistress on DVD after Tivo-ing it on the Independant Films Channel. The DVD happened to be the 104 minute Canadian release by Mongrel Media, also NTSC Region 1 as in the US. The IFC broadcast and DVD are identical in content. However, the DVD version runs slightly faster, hence a ten minute or so time discrepancy. The speed difference raises Ryno's voice pitch slightly so that it is not as deep and full as in the IFC version, but the sensual aura seems to be unaffected. The DVD had a much brighter picture and a thinner font on the English subtitles.
Otherwise I concur with other reviewers in that this film should have gotten alot more attention and play in the mainstream market. While certainly physical and earthy, it is by no means prurient or pornographic. Sadly, many cannot or choose not to discern the difference.