Classic film : 8 1/2 by Federico Fellini

Starring: Marcello Mastroianni,Claudia Cardinale, Anouk Aimée, Sandra Milo and others. I don’t think I ever applauded a movie while watching it at home alone…but I literally applauded this film. It was sooooo good. It is like a visual 3 course meal. It is a 3 ring circus. It is

about the futility of human existence, while at the same time highlighting each individual character in the most glorious of ways. Each character, no matter how brief their screen time gets a moment to be recognized. Each character has been placed meticulously in frame at the right moment for us to view. It looks nonsensical, but there is a reason we are looking at them at the moment we see them. It is like each person is their own little world, like a crystal globe that we look into to see their persona. This film is the epitome of magical realism -- it blends a fantasy world with some form or reality together with the fluidity of an impressionist’s paint brush. At the same time, it has plenty of storyline to hold on to. The black and white imagery is amazing. The contrasts are so stark, so the whites are really white, and the darks, (especially the lead’s costumes) really pop. The settings are so incredibly elegant and otherworldly. There are two settings that stand out as extremely stark, one being the tower that is being made for a film shoot, and the other being the bath house that all of the characters visit at the same time. The bath house is some form of purgatory, and that lines up with the main character’s sense of guilt, and perhaps his conflict with his Italian Catholic upbringing. The tower is the lead character’s looming fear that he will not be a success, which is emphasized by the fact that it remains unfinished throughout the film. The plot is secondary, but I will go over it. The symbolism tells a lot of the story, but would only remain as random symbols if it were not for the storyline. The basic story is that there is a film director, Guido Anselmi, who is on the verge of starting a new production. He has written the story, and the film opens with him meeting a writer/film critic to go over the details of the story. They are scheduled to meet in this ethereal kind of plaza, a place that blends modern tall structures with an ancient Roman circus place. It's in a round. The characters meet there often. Before the writer arrives, Guido lines up to get a glass of water from some women working a table at the front. He looks off to the side to see a vision of a beautiful woman. The sound gets very quiet, almost drops out, and the film follows her as she glides quickly barefoot across the plaza. She is one of the loveliest women I’ve seen on screen. You can tell she is the woman of his dreams, or some sort of signal of purity and virtue while also being very sensual. Then, just as she is about to hand the glass of water to him, she changes into a different woman, an older woman- a regular worker at the table. This, I found out much later, is Claudia. Claudia appears often throughout the film, in various white dresses, and she really doesn’t have a name until the very end of the film. She is a symbol, I believe, of Guido’s ideal woman. Guido is tackling a lot of issues, mainly centered around his relationships with women. Some of the relationships play out in reality, some are from his past, and some, like Claudia, are of his wishes. He also is struggling with a loss of his parents. They do not seem to be alive -- they drop in and out of scenes as a repeating motif. It looks like he loved them very much, but may have had some issues with them. Seems like he slightly disappointed his father, for some reason which is left unsaid. Guido also sees his mother- - and though one can tell that he loves her deeply, there are issues. The mother appears crying, often. The mother is a prominent scene where Guido as a little boy gets in trouble at his Catholic school, and Mama is crying about that - disappointed. His mother sometimes appears in sensual scenes, as if to observe with dismay at what her son is doing. One scene, Guido goes from kissing his wife, to kissing his mother romantically. Some guilt and shame issues there, I believe. It looks like he had a good childhood. As a little boy, he had a nurse along with his siblings to play with. His sister tells him ghost stories, and tells him of a chant to bring his dead uncle back to life. He obviously enjoyed his childhood, though the catholic upbringing made him feel guilty about his sexuality. Another scene of his childhood has to do with his sexuality. As a boy, his friends would find this older woman, Saraghina, to dance for them. Looks like Saraghina is in poverty, but her husky good looks has made her into a businesswoman of sorts. They pay her a few dollars and she dances a sexy dance for them. The film stays pretty mild, but there is enough sensuality to know what is going on. The boys are found out by the priests and are punished. I was laughing through the majority of this scene- - it is done well. Back in semi-reality, Guido is balancing a few women. One just really wants a part in his film, another is his lusty but sometimes confusing mistress Carla, and one is his wife. The wife, Luisa, played by Anouk Aimée, is barely seen until the last third of the film. Their relationship is very strained -- it starts off with them acting as if they are long lost friends, not a married couple. Later, it is explained that his wife is fully aware of his affairs, and though she may not know his current lover -- she easily spots the mistress in the plaza. Luisa is no idiot. In one dreamlike sequence, Guido portrays her as a washer woman, a servant --- who is praising him, whereas in reality, she is a much more complicated woman who wants his respect. The divide between them gets bigger when he basically uses what she says to him as material in his new film. When the actress playing “the wife” in the film repeats Luisa’s words and has her look, Luisa has had enough of his shenanigans and bows out. There is a wild scene in Guido’s imaginings of all of the women in his life in one room as a sort of harem. They at first are there to support him and his every whim, but when one of the women protests being sent upstairs because she is too “old” at 27, the sht hits the fan and they all turn on him. Oddly enough, Guido’s ideal woman Claudia never makes an appearance in this scene, perhaps symbolizing that she is unattainable. The other thing that is unattainable is Guido’s ability to make any decisions on the production of his film. This weighs heavy on him. I thought that Guido actually wanted the producers to leave him alone. Also, the writer/critic is HYPER CRITICAL of Guido’s concept, to the point that it is freezing Guido up. I enjoyed the scene where Guido imagines killing the critic, cause he was driving Guido crazy. He was driving me equally nuts -- I was like, let the guy think. (Maybe this is alluding to his own critical self) Another thing that is debilitating for Guido is his issues, emotionally, and it is affecting his work. I think he has depression. The ending is dramatic, shocking, and full of metaphors. Nothing is clear cut, it's absurdist, and intentionally bizarre. It is open ended and keeps one guessing. I think that Guido’s drastic choice leads him to finally be able to create his film, though it may not be set in reality. You have to see it to get what I mean. I highly recommend you see it, if you are interested in film and filmmaking.