["Before the Revolution" is] a poignant love story epitomizing a young man's growth through the dense, chaotic jungle of contemporary civilization. Like many of the best modern films, the drama is difficult, subtle and extraordinarily complex in its imagery.

Mr. Bertolucci, who is nothing if not ambitious, has attempted a symbolic autobiography that is classical in its construction. Fabrizio, the protagonist, is a Stendhal character, residing in Parma and ultimately marrying a bourgeois girl named Clélia. Hs is also an Italian Holden Caulfield, flailing his adolescent limbs and querying intellect against the social structures of 1962.

The title derives from Talleyrand—"Only those who lived before the revolution knew how sweet life could be." In a typical gesture of searching youth, the boy revolts against everything in his surroundings—his respectable middle-class family, his lovely but dull childhood sweetheart, the political climate in his provincial town. He dallies...