La dolce vita (1960)
Crit
This is not a film that I would have thought especially needs the big screen, but this is the first time I've seen it big and the first time I've appreciated how magical it is before it turns terrible and then horrible. Coincidènza?
Pitch-perfect performances by Marcello Mastroianni, as an underachieving, bored, depressed, philandering, empty journalist; Yvonne Furneaux as his understandably loony fiancée; Anouk Aimée as his true love, if true love were possible; Anita Ekberg as the pneumatic Swedish (or American--we're told both) movie star whom he loves and loses early on (as does the audience); Alain Cuny as his tragic role model; and Walter Santesso as the freelance photographer whose name, Paparazzo, was soon after applied to the breed.
Also full of indelible images, from the opening helicopter-toted statue of Jesus to the flock of balloons following the clown/trumpeter from the cabaret floor to the staring eye of a manta ray dragged ashore at the hungover conclusion. As near to perfection as a plotless film can be.
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