You just know it’s a meaningful film when it influences so
many directors, Federico
Fellini’s 81/2 (1963) is one such film. Rainer Werner Fassbinder,
Francois Truffaut, Bob Fosse, Woody Allen are just some of the world-class
filmmakers that have been influenced by this movie. Dare we forget the dreadful
remake by Rob Marshall Nine (2009)
but at the other end of the scale is probable the best film of 2013 Paolo
Sorrentino’s un-missable The Great Beauty. Even the music
video for R.E.M’s brilliant Everybody Hurts was inspired by the
movies opening scene.
This black and white autobiographical movie is about a
famous Italian film director Guido Annelmi, played by a very cool Marcello
Mastroianni, who is suffering from writers and directors block. His new film is
to be a science fiction film but he seems to have lost interest amid artistic
and marital problems. And we the audience are never really sure if what we see
on screen is reality or a series of flashbacks or dreamlike imagery that probe
the director’s memories and fantasies. Some fine looking actresses inhabit
Guido’s surreal and dreamlike existence including his wife played by Anouk
Aimee, Rossella Falk as Luisa her best friend, Guido’s mistress portrayed by
Sandra Milo and of course Guido’s ideal woman Claudia played by the Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) star
Claudia Cardinale.
Fellini’s comedy is a monument to the mystery and beauty of
European actresses and Italian film making at its best, sophisticated and
erotic. Without spoiling your enjoyment of this must see movie, I can say that
it has a grand finish and for me posed the question is life just a circus? I
know the answer to that question - do you?
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