‘THE Last Mistress” is the most overtly sensual film to come our way of late. But would you expect any thing less when Italian actress Asia Argento and French filmmaker Catherine Breillat – two women noted for letting it all hang out – join forces?
In her most accomplished performance to date, Argento portrays Vellini, a 19th-century courtesan who refuses to give up her 10-year relationship with a libertine aristocrat, Ryno – pretty-boy newcomer Fu’ad Ait Aattou – even when he marries another woman.
Ryno claims to be deeply in love with his bride, virginal blonde Hermangarde (Roxane Mesquida), but he can’t resist Vellini, who is said to be the illegitimate child of an Italian princess and a famed Spanish matador.
Vellini, overwrought with jealousy, follows the couple on their honeymoon and makes no attempt to hide her presence.
It takes little for her to get Ryno into bed. Perhaps it’s because she’s hot in the sack and his wife is frigid. Or maybe it’s the way Vellini licks an ice cream cone and blows smoke rings with her cigar.
Or perhaps he’s turned on when she licks blood from his wound after he’s shot in a duel with her doddering old husband.
Beautifully composed, “The Last Mistress,” Breillat’s 11th film, deals with the theme she has put forth in such previous work as “Romance” and “Fat Girl”: how women deal with sexual desire.
She could not have picked a better actress than Argento, who knows more than a little about the matter.
THE LAST MISTRESS
Asia major.
In French, with English subtitles. Running time: 114 minutes. Not rated (sex, nudity, violence). At the IFC Center and the Lincoln Plaza.