Fellini Satyricon

Friday, March 7, 2008

I get off on this kind of movie.

This is a later Fellini film, and it is a bizarre, surreal, free adaptation of an old Roman book that only survived in fragments. Fellini loved the fragmented nature of the book so much that he decided to leave that element in, so every now and then the story skips forward and the characters are in a completely different situation with no explanation as to how they got there. That's fine with me, as the story wouldn't have made sense either way.

This is a full-on flying freak flag type of movie, completely off the rails and jam packed with insane imagery. Every shot is like a grotesque, ornate painting. It's not much like any other movie you've seen.... the closest comparison I can think of is Holy Mountain, although that's not quite right. There's just some similar imagery.

Anyway, if you're like me and you like movies that go for broke and fly completely off the handle, leaving logic or coherence miles behind and just try to pack in as much visual, cinematic insanity as possible, then by all means see this one. It's as good as they get.