Wow, what an interesting/weird film (and I mean that in a good way). Initially I didn’t know what the film was about but it all sort of fell into place by the end. (From the music in the DVD menu, I got the sense that this is a sort of circus atmosphere, like Fellini’s La Strada, which I also really enjoyed). Actually, there was fantastic music throughout with a few well known classical pieces that really got the drama going.
So anyway, I thought there would be some neorealist elements to this film but I was wrong. I mean, there were some hand-held camera shots in the fantastic opening sequence in the car (when he’s trapped in the car, with people in surrounding cars frozen and watching him almost like they’re watching a film, before Guido goes flying up into the sky). But overall the film is definitely a departure from neorealism − I would say it is closer to surrealism at times. It is definitely a fictional, imaginative piece, however, it felt like a documentary at times and it’s interesting how Fellini manages this. I felt there were also so many similarities to Godard, especially how the camera and voiceover narrated some of the parts. The film also makes reference to cinema itself, particularly when the producer is speaking to Guido and talks about the “ambiguous reality” of cinema and how it is “50 years behind the other arts”. I think the film suggests something about the nature of memories and film itself − art itself.
Also, I just have to mention, the main character, a director named Guido (played by Marcello Mastroianni) − well, I was quite struck by this handsome actor. He reminded me of George Clooney cross Robert Downey Jnr cross Johnny Depp (now that’s a compliment). He was so stylish and suave like a James Bond character, and at one point when he is looking at a girl, the music stops and we know this guy is at the top of his game. And it wasn’t until after the film I research his filmography and surprise, surprise he was in Visconti’s Le notti bianche − another great film. He played a similar role too, as a kind of womaniser, although I liked him more in this film.
The whole movie is like a dream, as they describe it on the DVD cover, “a shimmering dream, a circus and a magic act”. It definitely was. I now see how the working title for this film fits in: “The Beautiful Confusion”. So weird yet intriguing, the whole film was like a hallucination. I didn’t understand every moment but that’s ok. There was no real plot, it was about a director who is making a film but doesn’t have any ideas and the film is filled with his memories, flashbacks and dreams, sort of fuelling his inspiration. There is a scene when he is with a harem of girls (who are all the cast in the film, as well as his wife, Luisa) and flashbacks to his childhood (taking a bath, dancing with the woman Saraghina, who the Catholic priests tell him is a “devil woman”). It all makes for melodramatic film unlike anything I could’ve expected. There were lots of pans and very quick, sort of clumsy sharp close-ups (although I imagine there were purposely done in that way).
One of the first scenes, when everyone is at this large outdoor gathering, lining up and drinking water − well it all makes sense now because at the time I was not sure what was happening but clearly it was the cast and crew (this gathering is also echoed in the final sequence when everyone is lined up holding hands in a circle around what looks like a circus ring, next to the spaceship prop). This final scene actually features the music from the DVD menu that I mentioned above, the circus music, perhaps suggesting whether this all was just a dream. In any case, it makes you think twice about the nature of reality in a truly unreal way.
4/5
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