Amarcord
The Criterion Collection
In his carnivalesque portrait of provincial Italy during the Fascist period, Federico Fellini satirizes his youth and turns daily life into a circus of social rituals, adolescent desires, male fantasies, and political subterfuge, all set to Nino Rota's classic, nostalgia-tinged score. The Academy Award-winning Amarcord was one of Fellini's most personal - and popular - films, and it remains one of cinema's enduring treasures.
Member Reviews
Certainly a slice from history - zaakistan
Federico Fellini is one of those filmmakers that I am not allowed to avoid as an enthusiast, and while I can certainly appreciate his otherworldly genre and his profound effect on cinema, his films can be rather tedious to watch.
Amarcord - one of his best known films - portrays a small Italian town as fascism and World War II pass by. The town is steeped in legend and crawling with wild-eyed characters, not the least of whom is Volpina the prostitute who swaggers in and out of scenes in her red dress. The town is the protagonist and a narrator shares tales with the viewer.
I enjoyed the film for its historical portrayal of Italy and the moments of comedy. Felllini's assertion that Italy's innocence and character remained despite Mussolini and having foreign military forces on their soil is clearly the message. I did not find myself overly drawn into the characters however and the music, as immortalized as it is, was awfully repetitive.masterpiece - surfer
This is one of my favourite films of all time. It is perhaps more straightforward and less of an 'art' film that some of Fellini's more challenging work but it is a beautifully told remembrance of a year in the life of a boy coming of age.
The film includes a host of memorable moments as it passes through the seasons and the range of emotions from comedy and farce to drama and pathos. In one indelible scene the entire population of the small Italian town where the story is set take out in small boats at night to see a giant ocean liner pass them by like a magical ship glowing in the dark. Here is the passing of childhood told as only a master film maker can tell it.Four seasons in Fellini's life as he remembers their impact - kap0n3
This film is a life journey. Filled with indelible images: The peacock in the middle of the snow, the awesome vision of the ocean liner--and the blind man crying out: "What's it like, what's it like?", the belly-laugh inducing introduction to each of the instructors at school, the beautiful people, the grotesques. Like life itself, the movie can be perplexing and enigmatic, sometimes magical, sometimes, in the face of the political climate and history, frightening as "simple people just trying to live get caught up in the times they were themselves creating". I don't think any film I've ever seen has so completely captured with such profound insight and simplicity the experience of losing a parent: The visit by the father and son in the hospital in which the mother realizes the awesome finality about to approach, and the son is blissfully unaware in his adolescent "immortality", and the total feeling of quiet and emptiness as the father sits at the dining room table, formerly filled with joyful, loud, noisy life--now emptier than could have ever been imagined before--this whole sequence comes as a powerful conclusion to a stunning film. With a final coda a la 8 1/2, Fellini embraces the audience, telling them not to worry--memories go on, life goes on, changed, altered forever perhaps, but it goes on, beautifully, enigmatically, magically.
Member Reviews
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Certainly a slice from history - zaakistan
Federico Fellini is one of those filmmakers that I am not allowed to avoid as an enthusiast, and while I can certainly appreciate his otherworldly genre and his profound effect on cinema, his films can be rather tedious to watch.
Amarcord - one of his ...masterpiece - surfer
This is one of my favourite films of all time. It is perhaps more straightforward and less of an 'art' film that some of Fellini's more challenging work but it is a beautifully told remembrance of a year in the life of a boy coming of age.
The film ...Four seasons in Fellini's life as he remembers their impact - kap0n3
This film is a life journey. Filled with indelible images: The peacock in the middle of the snow, the awesome vision of the ocean liner--and the blind man crying out: "What's it like, what's it like?", the belly-laugh inducing introduction to each of the instructors ...