Based on the acclaimed novel by Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly, writer/director Catherine Breillat’s (Fat Girl) The Last Mistress is a scandalously sexy period melodrama full of saucy imagination and passionate brio. One of the more twistedly entertaining epics to make its debut at this year’s Seattle International Film Festival, while this corset-busting romance doesn’t offer much in the way that’s new it more than makes up for that deficiency by being superlatively entertaining instead.

Make no bones about it; this is one mightily hot-and-bothered lust-filled romance the likes of which the French do better than just about anyone. Breasts are bared, butts are flashed and the sexual energy emanating from all of the characters is so potently blistering it could just about cause audience members to unexpectedly burst into flames. This movie made me sweat, sometimes profusely, and even during a second screening I was still more than a little bit caught off guard as to just how hot the action taking place really was.

The thing is, as violently kinetic as all this passion is the film never packs quite the same punch a few of Breillat’s more audacious and original works have. Fat Girl and Anatomy of Hell took so many chances with both subject matter and storytelling that they couldn’t help but impress upon a deeper level. The director pulled no punches and took no prisoners, and even if you hated what she was saying you definitely had to admit the woman’s strength of conviction and purpose to see her viewpoints carried out to their extremes was decidedly spectacular.

This movie doesn’t even attempt to do something like this. Instead, it just wants to tell a wickedly complicated saga of lust, passion, betrayal and deceit and do it in a way that keeps viewers intrigued to see what happens next. The director does this, sometimes brilliantly, and by the time things reached their frustratingly erotic and confusingly twisted denouements I was so wrapped up in all the Machiavellian interpersonal meanderings I almost didn’t want to see the story end.

I still don’t know what to make of Argento. She’s not really much of an actress, but the woman is so magnetic I don’t think a person could take their eyes off of her even if they tried. This woman is a sheer force of nature, a trait making her perfect to play a firebrand of a character like La Vellini. Argento doesn’t just make the movie, she owns it completely, and walking out of the theater she is the one thing above all others you can’t stop talking about.

Not that the rest of the cast doesn’t have their fare share of moments. Aît Aattou is peculiarly effeminate while showcasing his forcefully unique masculinity. At the same time his co-star, the almost doll-like Mesquida, puts forth such a painful porcelain façade it nearly broke my heart. French veterans like Michael Lonsdale (Munich), Yolande Moreau (Vagabond) and Anne Parillaud (La Femme Nikita) all get their opportunities to shine, while on the technical side both cinematographer Giorgos Arvanitis (Total Eclipse) and costume designer Anaïs Romand (Clean) do superlative work worthy of recognition.

Start to finish, however, this is Breillat’s show and she once again shows herself to be a filmmaker to be reckoned with. While The Last Mistress doesn’t break new ground or offer sights and sounds new to cinema, her storytelling language is still so precise and intoxicatingly clear I couldn’t help but be enthralled. This is a good movie, sometimes even a great one, and as further entries upon the woman’s directorial resume are accrued this is one highlight she’ll never be ashamed of.

Film Rating: êêê  (out of 4)

Additional Links:

-  2008 SIFF Blog by Sara Michelle Fetters
-  2008 Seattle International Film Festival Home Page
-  The Last Mistress Theatrical Trailer