IMDb #205 Review: 8 1/2 (1963)

Source: Wikipedia

If great movies temper fantasy with reality, movies about movie-making should inject reality with fantasy. Or that's the logic of Italian auteur Federico Fellini, as he sketches a director’s plight against the backdrop of his deranged imagination.

There's this guy, Guido, who's made great movies. Problem is, he’s out of ideas. He’s still making a movie, but nobody knows what it’s about, not even him. He smashes together seemingly random elements, hoping they’ll congeal into a coherent whole, but to little avail.

Critique of the Catholic church? Autobiographical exploration of his own romantic conquests? Rocket ships? Tap-dancing sailors? What he claims is “a simple story” collapses under the weight of its own ludicrous complexity.

8 1/2 also smashes together seemingly random crap but apparently succeeds. (At least according to most film critics with an iota of clout.)

So we psychologically explore the director guy's sex life. He can’t control his chatty, foppish mistress. He can’t communicate with his chilly wife. So he fondly reflects on his youth (and its plus-sized temptresses). Without warning, ugly reality transitions into sadomasochistic dream sequences.

The Catholic Church figures into things somehow, as the director pursues an interview with a Cardinal. The paparazzi buzz around the director like flies swarming a corpse. For reasons indecipherable to me, there’s a smiley magician and yes, tap-dancing sailors (actors) on a rocket ship (set).

If this movie sounds at all appealing, I’ll say it now: I was bored, baffled, frustrated out of my mind. Maybe I’m too young, too inexperienced, too monogamous to appreciate a surreal self-referential masterpiece.

But let me cautiously recommend it for smarter, more patient people. And for world-weary movie-making professionals who’ve probably already seen it already anyway.

138 minutes.

IMDb #222 Review: The Battle of Algiers (1966)

Source: Wikipedia

Contrary to ever World War II movie ever made, evil didn't evaporate forever with the demise of Hitler and/or Hirohito. People still suck.

Case in point: in the 1950s, the French occupy Algeria in North Africa. The Arabs want the French to leave, the French want to stay. It gets bad. So bad you almost want to root for the terrorists.

We follow a delinquent draft-dodger who unwittingly bumbles into leading the National Liberation Front.

These Arab terrorists bomb the French. In retaliation, the French institute checkpoints, blockades, propaganda.  Undeterred, the Arab ghetto harbors fugitives, goes on strike, and ululates. The unofficial war escalates into full-blown violence.

Hollywood loves explosions, but war-torn Africa isn't Hollywood. Bombs don’t make pretty fireballs; they create clouds of dust and rubble and maimed corpses. (The gore here never becomes gruesome, but it doesn't need to.)

The minimalist soundtrack reflects the situation. Low piano notes plunk like distant dynamite, drums click in regular rapid tempo like machine gun fire. And despite all the repetitive noise, nothing really goes anywhere.

The film drifts in a moral gray area, not just because it’s shot in black and white. The French are World War II veterans, and the Arabs are rabid underdogs. As the rebel ranks dwindle, the survivors suffer alone and persevere. As one character says, revolutions are hard to start, harder to sustain, and hardest to win.

A difficult watch, but oddly inspirational, the same way Greek tragedies and reality TV marathons make us want to become better people. Or should, anyhow.

Recommended for Arab haters (for some perspective), Francophiles (for more perspective), and the poor dupes who pray the U.N. will save us all.

120 minutes.

IMDb #238 Review: La Strada (1954)

Source: Wikipedia

For nearly two hours (months, in-story), a weird girl follows a beefy alcoholic grouch until tragedy strikes like a brick to the teeth. It’s black and white and Italian, so it’s art.

Yes, there’s more to it. Aforementioned grouch is Zampanò, a “traveling artist” so poor he lives in his motorcycle trailer. He’s a strongman. Meaning, whenever he musters enough bravado to draw a crowd, he follows a routine:

1. Remove shirt. (Very important.)
2. Flex.
3. Attach chain with quarter-inch links around chest.
4. Flex so as to break chain.
5. Collect booze money in hat.

He buys a girl from her mother (just go with it) to wear mime makeup, beat a drum, and pass the cash-collecting hat. First she’s unhappy, then slightly less unhappy, then…well…look, you’ve seen movies before, ain’t ya?

Problem is, Z-man isn’t exactly a diamond in the rough. More like a lump of coal. He sure acts dumb as one. He starts drunken brawls, stomps around, and looks funny in a pinstripe suit. As for the girl he bought? Early in their relationship, he whips her with a switch till she learns to play the trumpet. Their relationship hardly improves.

He’s a grump, a drunk, a womanizer. She wobbles between smiling sadly and mewling like a mopey puppy.

However, they meet a circus troupe, and a charismatic tightrope walker who insists everything has a purpose.

Is this a comedy? A romance? It skeeves me out.

A tragedy? It’s like watching the first act of Beauty and the Beast in super-slow motion.

Fortunately, it’s art.

104 minutes.

IMDb #249 Review: La Dolce Vita (1960)

Source: Wikipedia

A sleazebag journalist schmoozes and smooches through the rich, famous, beautiful women of 1960s Rome, and I think we’re supposed to feel sorry for the bastard.

He dreams of writing literature, **high art**, but feels trapped in the gossip columns. It doesn't help that he chases every pretty tail in the immediate vicinity. His poor girlfriend—first time we see her, she's flopped out on the floor, gasping for breath, having poisoned herself. Sadly, she survives to endure this despicable prick with the rest of us.

But there’s hope. A vivacious American film star visits Rome. A giggling floozy, statuesque dumb blonde. She revitalizes his life for a while, then trickles off-screen. Or something.

This movie was difficult to follow.

Scads of colorful one-note characters flit onscreen to do their duties and subsequently skitter off. Plot points pop up, pop back down. Conversations meander, or segue into tastefully unobtrusive philandering.

And methinks Fellini loves his show-within-a-show sequences, whether nightclub, cabaret, circus, or spontaneous rock-and-roll cover by a jazz band.

Somewhere there’s a satire about celebrity worship that remains scarily relevant today. Somewhere there’s a warning against unbridled hedonism, as demonstrated by the dysfunctional upper-upper class. Somewhere, so I hear, there’s even a comedy. I had to dig for it, but only unearthed the fossilized skeleton of an enjoyable film.

Philosophical musing? Social commentary? Revolutionary artistry? Bounced off my drooping eyelids.

In the end, I identify with the journalist protagonist, trapped in the “sweet life” of watching lovely, wealthy, detestable cretins make themselves miserable in pursuit of fun.

180 minutes.