356. La Dolce Vita (1960)

Directed By Frederico Fellini

Synopsis

The film follows the character of Marcello through a sequence of events where the the squalid, depressing nature of wealthy boredom is explored.

Review

It is strange that this film has come to be equated with sophisticate lifestyles and it's title meaning "The Sweet Life" stripped of all irony. The truth of the film is that it is unrelentingly depressing, the superficiality of it is oppressive, the characters are vacuous and annoying.

The only thing that gels the film together is the character of Marcello, through which you see the situations in the film, even he, in the end, becomes a part of the decadence. This is a film about how boredom and money can strip people of their common humanity, in this sense it is highly political.

Even if Felinni eschews narrative linearity in the film the moral linearity is constant throughout, Felinni makes us feel his disgust for the over-privileged scenes he shows us. All the beautiful superficiality hides something very rotten indeed, like the manta-ray at the end, it has been dead for at least three days. The outlook is so bleak for mankind that Steiner's actions almost make sense in the film's context, all characters have given up being human at one time or another, in the end even Marcello gives up.

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

In a device used earlier in his films, Fellini orders the disparate succession of sequences as movements from evening to dawn. Also employed as an ordering device is the image of a downward spiral that Marcello sets in motion when descending the first of several staircases (including ladders) that open and close each major episode. The upshot is that the film's aesthetic form, rather than its content, embodies the overall theme of Rome as a moral wasteland.

Sad Clown: