Rome. Marcello, a persistent journalist, is always on the look out for a hot story. He finds his suicidal girlfriend poisoned by pills in his apartment and manages to save her from sure death by bringing her to the hospital. But he doesn't have time for mourning: he catches a plane the next day to talk to the famous star Sylvia, but her husband beats him up in the end. Marcello rushes to one place where a girl had a vision of the holly Mary, then is later on interrupted by a visit from his father. Marcello tries to write a book and end a relationship with Emma
Federico Fellini is a tremendously talented director, but in my opinion more successful in his first film-making phase of realistic, simple films with heart ( shining La Strada" and La Notti Di Cabiria" ) than in his second from Da Dolce Vita" ( 1960 ), in which he went on producing weird, surreal and heavily pretentious satires and farces. The only excellent film from his second phase is Amarcord", which ironically reminds us of his first phase of realistic films. La Dolce Vita" is a quality drama that criticizes an empty society that feeds on shallow, sensation oriented stories from the press and media ( the word Paparazzi", used for the first time here, later on even became a part of the dictionary ). In that aspect, it doesn't attack the journalists as much as the society that fuels them. But although Vita" won the Golden Palm in Cannes and was nominated for an Oscar for best director, set design and script, it feels rather shallow and empty itself.
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Many sequences are great - for example, the opening shot in which a helicopter is shown carrying a statue of Jesus Christ, or the one where a man is protecting" his face from the photographers by placing a newspaper in front of himself as are some details but Fellini decided to put too much of his ideas in the story, causing it to go out of control. After 165 minutes of screen time the movie loses it's energy and becomes a little bit of a bore. I guess the ending scene with that rotten fish sums it up for me: subversive and profound, but too pretentious for it's own good.
Grade: 6/10
Federico Fellini is a tremendously talented director, but in my opinion more successful in his first film-making phase of realistic, simple films with heart ( shining La Strada" and La Notti Di Cabiria" ) than in his second from Da Dolce Vita" ( 1960 ), in which he went on producing weird, surreal and heavily pretentious satires and farces. The only excellent film from his second phase is Amarcord", which ironically reminds us of his first phase of realistic films. La Dolce Vita" is a quality drama that criticizes an empty society that feeds on shallow, sensation oriented stories from the press and media ( the word Paparazzi", used for the first time here, later on even became a part of the dictionary ). In that aspect, it doesn't attack the journalists as much as the society that fuels them. But although Vita" won the Golden Palm in Cannes and was nominated for an Oscar for best director, set design and script, it feels rather shallow and empty itself.
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Many sequences are great - for example, the opening shot in which a helicopter is shown carrying a statue of Jesus Christ, or the one where a man is protecting" his face from the photographers by placing a newspaper in front of himself as are some details but Fellini decided to put too much of his ideas in the story, causing it to go out of control. After 165 minutes of screen time the movie loses it's energy and becomes a little bit of a bore. I guess the ending scene with that rotten fish sums it up for me: subversive and profound, but too pretentious for it's own good.
Grade: 6/10