The film is at once a celebration of the sexual revolution and a celebration of cinema as the secular equivalent of religion, at a time when movies really mattered.
Legendary director Bernardo Bertolucci ("1900") crafts a return to social revolt in the form of sexual pursuits by a trio of late '60s teenaged students in this engaging yet insufficient movie.
Its nostalgia and narcissism are ultimately two versions of the same thing, and neither can reopen cross-cultural channels. Instead they keep this story stuck in the past, frozen and intact and irrelevant.
