A triumph of style over substance.
One can't overcome the feeling while watching "La Dolce Vita" that Federico Fellini thinks he's being terribly intellectual and profound, but there's precious little going on in this film's head. It's telling that on a second viewing, when I thought I would discover nuance and detail I missed the first time around, I was instead bored and found myself counting down the minutes until the film was over.
Fellini seems to be criticizing a decadent, empty modern society in which ideas have died. Fair enough. But if he's going to make that point -- and drag it out for over three hours, no less -- perhaps he would have been wise to choose someone other than the rich, privileged class to make the point with. The grand conclusion he comes to in his film is that money, wealth and status aren't enough to give a life meaning or purpose, and don't offer anything to offset the void of boredom that they create. This isn't news. Has there ever been a time in history when the privileged classes haven't been bored? I thought the strongest sequence in the film was that depicting the media frenzy that erupts when two children see the Madonna in an empty field. It reminded me of a news story that occurred just a few months ago here in Chicago when a similar frenzy erupted over a water stain in the shape of the Virgin Mary that formed on the wall of an Interstate overpass. Fellini beautifully caught the utter absurdity of people trying to convince themselves that what they want to believe is true, and the sadness that this need is necessary in the first place.
In the film's final sequence, Marcello Mastroianni's character tells the people he's partying with that they're the most boring people alive. I second that. Too bad that a movie about boring, vacuous people makes for a boring, vacuous movie.
Grade: C+
One can't overcome the feeling while watching "La Dolce Vita" that Federico Fellini thinks he's being terribly intellectual and profound, but there's precious little going on in this film's head. It's telling that on a second viewing, when I thought I would discover nuance and detail I missed the first time around, I was instead bored and found myself counting down the minutes until the film was over.
Fellini seems to be criticizing a decadent, empty modern society in which ideas have died. Fair enough. But if he's going to make that point -- and drag it out for over three hours, no less -- perhaps he would have been wise to choose someone other than the rich, privileged class to make the point with. The grand conclusion he comes to in his film is that money, wealth and status aren't enough to give a life meaning or purpose, and don't offer anything to offset the void of boredom that they create. This isn't news. Has there ever been a time in history when the privileged classes haven't been bored? I thought the strongest sequence in the film was that depicting the media frenzy that erupts when two children see the Madonna in an empty field. It reminded me of a news story that occurred just a few months ago here in Chicago when a similar frenzy erupted over a water stain in the shape of the Virgin Mary that formed on the wall of an Interstate overpass. Fellini beautifully caught the utter absurdity of people trying to convince themselves that what they want to believe is true, and the sadness that this need is necessary in the first place.
In the film's final sequence, Marcello Mastroianni's character tells the people he's partying with that they're the most boring people alive. I second that. Too bad that a movie about boring, vacuous people makes for a boring, vacuous movie.
Grade: C+