A review of Last Tango in Paris requires, in a way, a parallel discussion of modern cinema history, and of the participants in the movie itself - which, when released, was promptly banned in several countries, and made as much commotion as profit. The famous review of Pauline Kael in The New Yorker announced to the world the dawn of a new era in cinema. However, after all these years, what we have come upon instead is a landscape that has, cleverly and in a mocking way, evaded the prophecies of such clairvoyants.
