This is the most glorious film I have seen for ages. Firstly it is spectacular to watch - exquisitely beautiful, barely a shot fails to please. Second, it is in Italian and set in Rome - which gives me an enormous shot of cultural cocaine, and a certain amount of nostalgia. Finally it is set amongst people in late middle age, who are thinking about their lives and still trying to live them well - so it is age-appropriate! Finally, it is attempting to say the simple thing we all think about life - that it is wonderful, beautiful, a great gift, but that our mundane life prevents us from appreciating it as we should.
There is so much to enjoy - incredible soundtrack of wonderful music as well, And it's funny.
In some ways it's a bit like La Dolce Vita except the characters are older - but there are whole scenes that seem to be re-worked from Fellini films - I thought I recognised bits from DV, Roma, Satyricon and Otto e mezzo... and some very Fellini-esque scenes - which managed somehow to be more touching than grotesque. It is so Fellini - but better - often in Fellini one is watching an artefact - an historical experience, a bit of cinema heritage. This was not true when I first saw Fellini in my teens - his films then were only 10-15 years old - relatively contemporary, even if some were in black and white. I still love some of his films, notably Roma and Amarcord, but to see this film was like seeing a Fellini who had properly matured. I don't know his late films well - but I always feel that they didn't have anything new to say. La Grande Bellezza also lacks the mammismo elements of a lot of Fellini's films, and in fact there is a rather glorious put down of a woman who claims to have sacrificed a great deal for her children.
You can see Jeb Gambarella as Marcello in Dolce Vita - but grown older. Jeb came to Rome from elsewhere, he loves Rome, he's been a journalist, but he's also written a very influential novella. He's wealthy and hedonistic, but still questioning things. He has a long-lost love who has died recently - and then her husband revealed that she was in love with him all her life.
The lighting is exquisite - seldom full bright searing day, but early evening, or morning shots. The architecture is Rome - with a lot of Bramante's Tempietto and the great fountain on the Gianicolo (Janiculum) as well as the Colosseum - even interiors, my fave being the short scene in the Palazzo Spada... places I'd forgotten I'd been to, and places like the palace with the great terraced gardens which I've always wanted to go to. I don't even know the name of this palace - I saw a picture of it once in an 18thC painting - but they appear to have filmed part of it there.
Many of the themes are themes from Fellini: the weirder aspects of the Church (a worldly cardinal who talks boringly about food, an ascetic, toothless nun), the decayed gentry of Rome, appearance, fading beauty (a botox clinic), nuns, a stripper, etc.
I have probably left out a dozen other things - yes, the flamingoes - surely not a nod to John Waters?
This is not coherent I feel - it is a raving review!
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| Jeb Gambarella (Toni Servillo) in La Grande Bellezza |
In some ways it's a bit like La Dolce Vita except the characters are older - but there are whole scenes that seem to be re-worked from Fellini films - I thought I recognised bits from DV, Roma, Satyricon and Otto e mezzo... and some very Fellini-esque scenes - which managed somehow to be more touching than grotesque. It is so Fellini - but better - often in Fellini one is watching an artefact - an historical experience, a bit of cinema heritage. This was not true when I first saw Fellini in my teens - his films then were only 10-15 years old - relatively contemporary, even if some were in black and white. I still love some of his films, notably Roma and Amarcord, but to see this film was like seeing a Fellini who had properly matured. I don't know his late films well - but I always feel that they didn't have anything new to say. La Grande Bellezza also lacks the mammismo elements of a lot of Fellini's films, and in fact there is a rather glorious put down of a woman who claims to have sacrificed a great deal for her children.
You can see Jeb Gambarella as Marcello in Dolce Vita - but grown older. Jeb came to Rome from elsewhere, he loves Rome, he's been a journalist, but he's also written a very influential novella. He's wealthy and hedonistic, but still questioning things. He has a long-lost love who has died recently - and then her husband revealed that she was in love with him all her life.
The lighting is exquisite - seldom full bright searing day, but early evening, or morning shots. The architecture is Rome - with a lot of Bramante's Tempietto and the great fountain on the Gianicolo (Janiculum) as well as the Colosseum - even interiors, my fave being the short scene in the Palazzo Spada... places I'd forgotten I'd been to, and places like the palace with the great terraced gardens which I've always wanted to go to. I don't even know the name of this palace - I saw a picture of it once in an 18thC painting - but they appear to have filmed part of it there.
Many of the themes are themes from Fellini: the weirder aspects of the Church (a worldly cardinal who talks boringly about food, an ascetic, toothless nun), the decayed gentry of Rome, appearance, fading beauty (a botox clinic), nuns, a stripper, etc.
I have probably left out a dozen other things - yes, the flamingoes - surely not a nod to John Waters?
This is not coherent I feel - it is a raving review!
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