I have very nearly reached the end of the road for my unofficial Italian "season". I may have procrastinated slightly more than I did for my Japanese season but I figured I'd both round off and start a new week with Fellini's much talked about classics.
And what a beautifully constructed film this is. I'm a big fan of how a majority of the time Fellini doesn't rely on plot to drive his films but character. As a result some of it even feels heavily based in fantasy even though it's not. There are dance sequences for example that seem to come out of nowhere but are just wonderful and maybe it is a direct result of the gorgeous cinematography in these moments. He has a lot to say here about a number of things through main character Marcello, namely celebrity status, at least that's what stood out to me with him being a paparazzo.
It is very epic in scale at just shy of 3 hours which isn't really what you'd expect from a film without action or adventure, in fact it's mostly talking and just sort of hanging out over 7 days. What is stopping me from giving it a 5 star rating however is that I believe it peaked in it's first hour if that makes sense. I was a lot more engaged especially during the iconic fountain scene which had me in awe, nothing after this is bad, it is all still very good but nothing continued to hook me in that way. I'm very much looking forward to 8 1/2 for what I hope is a big finale.
I have very nearly reached the end of the road for my unofficial Italian "season". I may have procrastinated slightly more than I did for my Japanese season but I figured I'd both round off and start a new week with Fellini's much talked about classics.
And what a beautifully constructed film this is. I'm a big fan of how a majority of the time Fellini doesn't rely on plot to drive his films but character. As a result some of it even feels heavily based in fantasy even though it's not. There are dance sequences for example that seem to come out of nowhere but are just wonderful and maybe it is a direct result of the gorgeous cinematography in these moments. He has a lot to say here about a number of things through main character Marcello, namely celebrity status, at least that's what stood out to me with him being a paparazzo.
It is very epic in scale at just shy of 3 hours which isn't really what you'd expect from a film without action or adventure, in fact it's mostly talking and just sort of hanging out over 7 days. What is stopping me from giving it a 5 star rating however is that I believe it peaked in it's first hour if that makes sense. I was a lot more engaged especially during the iconic fountain scene which had me in awe, nothing after this is bad, it is all still very good but nothing continued to hook me in that way. I'm very much looking forward to 8 1/2 for what I hope is a big finale.
