A cold, bleak ambience provides the perfect environment for Bernardo Bertolucci’s shocking, mesmerizing take on sexuality, politics and identity. It’s a film shrouded in secrecy and suspense, existing in a brazenly desolate universe that we are led through by a very mysterious lead character. Throughout the entire film we try to get a grasp on who this man is and what his motivations are, but even by the end we are never quite sure; perhaps he tries to please, perhaps his childhood filled with molestation and murder has led to the way he is now or perhaps he truly is just a symbolism for society’s need to conform.

There is a moment at the end of the film that shockingly displays Bertolucci’s theme on conformity here, and left me stunned. Several times during the film it is brought up that Marcello Clerici is a Fascist and within seconds at the end he turns on his friend, and in a dark tunnel he outs him as a Fascist and persecutes him, in a desperate attempt to conform and be accepted. Watching this scene it is impossible not to ruminate on the numerous times in the history of society that people have inexplicably shifted in a big way due to a change in power or majority opinion. Here Bertolucci presents a blunt, stunning metaphor that left me thinking on it long after the fade to black.

One other moment that has stuck with me more than anything else in the film as a shining example of its brilliance and that is the assassination scene in the woods. As suspense grows and grows leading up to it, we are treated (or tortured) with an almost neverending moment of mystery and desperation as a beautiful woman flails through the woods, trying anything to avoid her inevitable death and we know that she can’t escape it. Bertolucci made a remarkable decision in leaving Marcello Clerici in his car during this scene and having the execution played out with a group of men dressed in the exact same clothes and hiding their faces from us. This shrouds the scene in extreme mystery and terror, but it also serves as a painful metaphor for our refusal to accept difference, as a society. He sends these faceless, analogous shells to murder anyone who thinks differently than the majority and it stuns the audience, bringing to mind the times in history when mass executions resulted from society’s refusal to believe in anything different than what the majority thinks.

Despite all of the powerful, unique themes and symbolism, where The Conformist shines brightest is perhaps in it’s aesthetics. In a vein similar to that of Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven, Bertolucci uses the visuals (with breathtaking cinematography by Vittiorio Storaro) here to create an ambience where the emotions that are evoked from the viewer come mostly due to the aesthetics rather than the story and characters. It’s a technique that has only been done perfectly a few times from what I’ve seen, but this is without a doubt one of the finest examples of that. The use of vibrant color in some scenes and dull grays in other instantly bring a reaction from the viewer and Storaro’s use of tracking shots focusing on Clerici amidst wide landscapes does an excellent job of eliciting that desolate, isolated sensation.