Saturday, December 19, 2009

La Dolce Vita


I need to see every Fellini movie in the catalogue.

8 1/2 is the best film I've ever seen. LA DOLCE VITA makes the top 10. I'm having a Kurosawa moment, a time when a filmmaker blooms in my consciousness as a major, defining force; a time when I realize that I must seek out an entire oeuvre, consume it, internalize it. If these two pictures of Fellini's are so earth-shakingly brilliant, I must discover what else is out there.

Fellini's meditation on what actually constitutes "the sweet life" is beautiful, insightful, silly, and profound. Marcello Mastroianni (Fellini's Mifune) is at his most charming and shallow best, and he anchors a picture that says nearly everything there is to say about the disconnect between who we are, who we think we are, and who we want to be.

What a magnificent picture.

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