La Luna
Before the opening credits, we see a simpering toddler, distressed by his mother's lack of attention to him.
Fast forward several years, and the toddler is now a teenager, still vying, it seems, for the attention of his parents: his mother, an opera singer by the name of Caterina Silveri (Jill Clayburgh) and her emasculated husband-cum-assistant (Fred Gwynne).
When Caterina heads to Italy to prepare for her upcoming performance, she takes her son, Joe, with her. Although Joe was initially keen to accompany her, his mother's insistence that he join her on the trip is met with some resistance, as it will require a considerable upheaval on his part.
Nevertheless, he and his mother end up in Italy. While Caterina focuses on her singing, her son, presumably left to his own devices, veers towards delinquent behaviour, and subsequent drug addiction.
Caterina, a hopeless narcissist, fearful of her own advancing age, resorts to alarming and disturbing measures to save her son from disaster. Or is she simply afraid of losing him?
Throughout the film, La Luna (the moon) is present: in the opening title sequence, in an early scene, and even in one of a number of beautifully staged opera scenes.
Last Tango In Paris caused such a sensation with its frank carnal content. It was but one of Bertolucci's films to explore sexuality. La Luna is another, but La Luna is much more: it's a far more thematically complex, emotionally intricate and ultimately satisfying study of dysfunctional attachment.