Federico Fellini

La Dolce Vita [The Good Life] (1960)

ByChristian Sauvé 2019-09-192023-03-19 Movie Review

(On DVD, September 2019) At nearly three hours of a nearly plotless movie about a nearly unlikable protagonist, writer-director Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita can be a trying viewing experience. It’s a collage of scenes with minimal narrative connective tissue, a lot of supporting characters that come and go without resolution, a decidedly depressing outlook on the search for meaning and enough ambiguity and loose ends to frustrate anyone who thinks that cinema is a primarily story-driven art form. That used to describe me almost perfectly a few years ago, but I’ve grown far more relaxed in my outlook for a while, striving to find pleasure even in movies that would have exasperated me not too long ago. La Dolce Vita does manage to remain interesting despite having been made into cliché—much of what it did to shock audiences back in 1960 (it was banned in a few countries) has been remade, redone, and re-examined (often far more interestingly, sometimes even by Fellini himself). We’re not exactly shocked anymore by a protagonist going from woman to woman, adventure to adventure, excess after excess in search of existential fulfillment. We’re not so shocked by backless dresses, form-fitting bras or prudish stripteases filmed to avoid showing nudity. There are scores of meandering films chronicling a few days in the life of an erring protagonist. But La Dolce Vita remains the ur-example of the form for a reason—it’s at its best when it jumps the bounds of strict Italian neorealism to spend some time in Fellini’s expressionist imagination. It features an impressive number of striking women: Anita Ekberg certainly makes an impression as a movie star in the film’s most purely enjoyable moment. But above all, La Dolce Vita features Marcello Mastroianni, world-class-cool despite playing a borderline reprehensible character. We can coast a long time on Mastrantonio’s charm and the odd visuals that the film throws at us in the middle of the protagonist’s search for meaning. It doesn’t really lead anywhere but a melancholic sense of missed opportunities, but it’s an interesting trip. This being said: I’ve seen the film, all 174 minutes of it. I don’t need to do so again anytime soon.

Movie Review

La Strada [The Road] (1954)

ByChristian Sauvé 2019-06-242023-03-19 Movie Review

(On Cable TV, June 2019) Given that I don’t particularly like Italian neorealism and that Federico Fellini hadn’t yet fully evolved into his more personal expressionist style by the time he completed La Strada, you can probably guess how I feel about the movie. An episodic drama focused on two desperately poor entertainers eking a life of misery on the road with a circus, La Strada is not a film for the impatient. While there is a plot of sorts that eventually distinguishes itself from the individual scenes, it takes a long time between the scenes to get the narrative ball rolling … and you may not like where it’s heading. Anthony Quinn, unusually enough, stars as the strongman Zampanò. Alongside him, Giulietta Masina (familiar from her later role in The Nights of Cabiria) plays the dim-witted long-suffering young girl basically bought by the strongman. I tolerated much of La Strada, but the parts I liked more were those that strayed away from the neo-realist style (into expressionism, into genre suspense). Otherwise, it’s enough to be able to scratch off this film from the umpteenth lists of essential movies on which it figures. One annoyance (or cool find): The five notes of the film’s insistent leitmotif are near identical to the opening of the theme to the James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun.

Movie Review

Le notti di Cabiria [The Nights of Cabiria] (1957)

ByChristian Sauvé 2019-04-182023-03-19 Movie Review

(In French, On Cable TV, April 2019) Getting through writer-director Federico Fellini’s filmography is a bit like balancing the meat-and-potatoes (with early neorealist films) with the far more exciting desserts (his later, more expressionist material). The Nights of Cabiria is one of the duller meat-and-potatoes courses. It’s neorealism à la Fellini, following the adventures of a prostitute throughout heartbreak, murder attempts and complete destitution. While the tone can approach comedy at times, the unbelievably cruel ending is tough to watch despite last-ditch attempts to show joy. It’s clearly not as oneiric as later Fellini; in fact, it feels closer to other early neorealists like De Sica and that’s not necessarily a good thing when it comes to liking the result. I can’t say whether I liked the great performance by Giulietta Masina’s performance and the somewhat dispiriting depiction of mid-50s Roman slums—both are top-notch, but both made the depressing film even worse. That lack of enthusiasm also explains why the film feels overlong, with multiple episodes that keep on going long after any patience has worn thin. Still, the ending won me over, perhaps more out of beaten-dog sympathy than anything else. If you like Italian neorealism, you know it and you know if you’re going to like The Nights of Cabiria.

Movie Review

8½ (1963)

ByChristian Sauvé 2018-09-092019-09-12 Movie Review

(On Cable TV, September 2018) Approaching Frederico Fellini’s 8½ comes with a heavy set of expectations: How can you watch something widely lauded as one of the best movies ever made without feeling at least a bit apprehensive? Do I have to turn in my film critic’s card if I don’t like it? Won’t the cool kids at the European arthouse table make fun of me? After all, I’m already not such a big fan of surrealist black-and-white auteur-driven European cinema. As it turns out, I shouldn’t have worried, because I ended up enjoying 8½ a lot more than I expected. Not to the level of an all-time favourite, but well enough to considering it reasonably entertaining. It helps that the film has a lot of hooks to be interesting. It was remade as a big-screen musical in 2010 as the disappointing Nine, giving me an idea of the (disconnected) plot ahead of time. It features a movie director having trouble with his latest science-fiction epic, hitting at least two of my soft spots in one premise. It does have the advantage of a gallery of attractive actresses fawning over the protagonist. (Leading to a hilarious dream sequence in which the protagonist imagines visiting all of his past relationships living under one roof.) It features Marcello Mastroianni, who embodies the coolest of what 1960s Italy had to offer. It partially takes place at a health retreat, the kind of dream resort that wealthy Europeans like to portray on-screen. 8½ does end up being remarkably funny at times, in-between Fellini looking so deep inward that the film ends up feeling like a Klein bottle. Much of the film’s deeper effect is lost on me due to incomplete knowledge: I partially resent how much of 8½ (including its very title) is incomprehensible if you’re not thoroughly up to speed on Fellini and the state of circa-1963 Italian cinema. Wikipedia does help, but movies should not require a reading list prior to viewing. Still, it works well enough even during surface viewing. Though it does feel too long and isn’t as tightly sewn as I would have preferred, 8½ is a remarkable piece of cinema that works on several levels and does offer a playful look at some resonant issues. I won’t put it near the top of my personal pantheon, but I liked it a lot more than I expected. In my mind, my 8½/Nine mashup has gorgeous colour cinematography, an out-of-control Sci-Fi spectacular, snappy musical numbers and Mastroianni dreaming that he’s Daniel Day-Lewis cavorting with Penélope Cruz and Claudia Cardinale.