Fellini's Roma
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Movie Reviews of Fellini's Roma
Movie Review: Fellini's Rome is Not Everyone's Rome
Summary: 5 Stars
Federico Fellini's 1972 film is not his best, when he has 8 1/2, La Strada and La Dolce Vita to his credit. While many critics adore this film for its absurdity and plotless, dreamy structure, I found it boring and phantasmagorical. It is simply Fellini's version of Rome and not Rome, the Eternal City itself. To risk sounding negative, I shall admit that there are some moments in which it is most expressive of early 1970's Rome - the scenes in which the hippies and American tourists invade the city, the long scene in the outdoor restaurant where everyone is talking their heads off (though saying some pretty vulgar things) and my favorite scene- the underground archaelogical excavation in which the frescoes of old Roman Patricians fade into oblivion. But mostly this film is weak in that it bored me because there was no plot. It starts off alright, and the movie works well when there is no sudden fantasy sequences. Fellini is himself in this movie, as well as Gore Vidal. Fellini envisions himself as a young man studying Rome in his youth in a strict Catholic school (the slide/projector shows ancient monuments like the Colliseum, the Apian Way, Trevi Fountain and Vatican as well as an offensive pornographic image of a woman's behind) and later as a young man journeys to Rome itself and takes residence with a large family in a crowded apartment in a slum. Then the young man sees a talent show that is tasteless, vulgar and long-winded. I found myself just as unimpressed as outraged as the audicences that went as far as to throw a dead cat on stage! It bothered me that there is much attention to prostitution, brothels or cheap, slutty women. The cover on the film is the promiscuous woman at the start of the film. And for a film about Rome and Italy, there is hardly any allusion to opera or any true classical theater. The Pope fashion show was ludicrous and blasphemous. Only serious, hardcore fans of Fellini will want to own this DVD. It is a perfect follow-up to his equally absurd and sexually radical Satyricon, loosely based on the old Roman epic.Movie Review: Rome Sweet Rome
Summary: 5 Stars
Federico Fellini is a master and it is out of question. It is impossible to watch any of his movies and not to be fascinated --even if you don't like it. His images are dreamy and his stories deal with absurdity as if it were the most natural thing in the world. And it he did like nobody else. This is a genius trademark.`Roma' is not among his most famous or praised movie, but it doesn't make of this little gem a lesser picture. Rather than a regular filme, with a sequencial narrative, introduction, climax etc, the movie consists in many vignettes in differente periods --past, present-- that is set in Rome. But the main character is the city itself. Things that have made of Rome what it is are there, such as pasta (typical Italian food), the art in the streets (like statues), Catholic religion...
I find it impossible to watch the movie and not be seduced by its beauty and inteligence. The images can be unforgettable. My favorite sequences are the one with the afrescos in the ancient Roman catacomb and the papal fashion show. They are surreal, they are funny, they are unforgetable. Past and present try to live to together in one of the oldest cities in the world, but it may not be possible. Like the old afrescos, the ancient city surrunders to the modernity. Really? Not, sure, because in the end motorcycles and Colosseum can live side by side-- rather than spoling each other, they enhance the other's beauty. And we find out that there is no place like Rome.
Movie Review: Beautiful, colorful and entertaining.
Summary: 5 Stars
If you like looking at pictures, here is a fabulous movie for you. Every frame has a story, a character, a movement. Each one is a surreal painting, mysterious, unnerving and beautiful. A smirk, a leering maid, a huge landlady, a beggar with a leg in a cast, a greasy father, a man running with a handcart, a bus full of football fans, the sweaty unruly audience at the theater. Each one of these images holds more in a few seconds than most movies put into an hour. Or you can watch abstract compositions of mud on windshields, the golden radiance that surrounds the pope, the swirl of translucent fabric following a figure made out of skeletons, reflections of light on the plastic canopy over the camera, the shadows of welders on the walls of Renaissance buildings.
If all of this is a bit rich then you you can sit back and think about the ways in which Fellini is putting together not just a string of autobiographical sketches but also commenting on his own movie making. His camera, mounted on a boom, keeps coming back into the movie with questions about what can be seen, what this movie could be about be about; hippies, politics, the Roman Empire. Or should it be about the ways in which we destroy the past when we try to resurrect it? The air of the present destroys 2,000 year old frescoes.
This is a great movie, worth watching again and again.
Movie Review: One of the giants films of Federico !
Summary: 5 Stars
Fellini paid his personal tribute to Roma , and he memorialized himself for the first time ; this is simply one the most ravishing films in any age , filled with bitter humor and incisive insights .
Fede built the movie as a set of delightful vignettes , making a great journey around the great city .
From the initial sequence in which we are in the middle of a hell traffic to the warm rendition of that admirable and unforgettable Anna Magnani the greatest actress of the italian cinema ever , but when you watch the recreation of the WW2 music hall and the unforgettable parade in the Vatican for priest and nuns you will be absolutely sure that no other filmmaker (with the supreme exception of Luis Buñuel) has been able to state a freedom state with barroque and dazzling images and sardonic approach as FeFe.
Movie Review: A Keeper
Summary: 5 Stars
I love latching onto a DVD that's worth keeping - and that means worth repeated watchings. ROMA fits the bill. First, know that it's a very good transfer: the film looks bright and new and brilliantly colored and the sound is clear. "Widescreen" here means only slight "letterboxing", and the subs are easy to read.
For content, ROMA is an Italophile's treasure, with a mix of a lot of earthy realism (as real as you'll get from Fellini) and a little romantic prettiness. There are both '70s counterculture and '40s fascism on view, and enough masterful filmwork to fill the eyes and ears. Everyone will have a favorite sequence: the vaudeville, yes! the visitor, si! and the world's longest boom-and-truck sequence ... fabulous.