Before the Revolution

Altogether a dazzling film, both continually vital and something of a time capsule.

Both the vices and virtues of youthful confidence are apparent in its muddied complexity and fluid brilliance.

A cerebral and involving film whose vigour is undimmed after 47 years.

What makes the film worth reviving is its stylistic elan, some channeled through Godard, Fellini and Antonioni, but all fresh and vigorous...

In all of Bertolucci's movies, there's a central conflict between the 'radical' impulses and a pessimistic (and/or willing) capitulation to the mainstream of bourgeois society and culture.

Here is a new talent of outstanding promise.

Before the Revolution doesn't widen the screen; it makes you widen your eyes. The world has opened: it is the power of art.

The style, the narrative and the message may not be particularly revolutionary in themselves, but Bertolucci as a director with enormous promise is still in there, pitching away.

A brilliant, crammed, allusive work.