CHAN IS MISSING (1982), dir. Wayne Wang

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“Chan is Missing” is a movie about the Chinese made by a Chinese-American, and it avoids the racial stereotyping a lot of Hollywood films do not. It was directed and co-written by Wayne Wang, who has gone on to direct other films about under-represented minority groups, including an adaptation of Amy Tan’s “The Joy Luck Club.” Although the low-budget “Chan is Missing” was filmed over a decade earlier, Wang’s penchant for Chinese characters with real depth already showed.

The movie centers around two San Francisco cab drivers named Jo (Wood Moy) and his nephew Steve (Marc Hayashi), who want to start their own taxi service. When the movie opens, they have given $4,000 to their partner Chan Ho, a relative of Jo’s ex-wife, to go file their business with the city. Unfortunately, several weeks have passed and they haven’t heard back from him. Then they find out from a social worker that Chan was recently involved in a traffic accident, but hasn’t made any of his court appearances.

What happened to Chan? Is he dead, or could he have run off with the money after the accident? Jo and Steve go looking for Chan in Chinatown, only to be told by his co-workers and friends that they haven’t seen him around either. But his jacket turns up at a nightclub he frequented, and there are possible clues in the pocket: a clipping from a local newspaper, about an elderly Chinese man who killed another man over political differences; and a letter from Chan’s brother written in Chinese.

The friends at the nightclub think Chan used the $4,000 to go back to China and resolve a family matter. But Jo, intrigued by the clipping, takes it to a buddy at the Chinese consulate. It turns out to be warning about how dangerous the political climate has become between Chinese who support the mother country’s stance against Taiwanese independence, and those who side with Taiwan. Later, during a stakeout of Chan’s apartment, they hear from his neighbor that a mysterious woman stopped by to talk with Chan about some photographs.

­­Could the photos Chan supposedly took have something to do with his disappearance? The mystery gradually unravels, albeit in a talky manner reflective of both independent American cinema and the production’s limited budget. Of course, some viewers will be turned off by the lack of movie stars and basic-looking set-ups; indeed, much of the acting seems done by amateurs, and although the black-and-white cinematography could be described as effectively-noirish at times, “Chan is Missing” is not exactly great-looking.

Still, based on cultural significance, the film deserves four stars just for employing real Asian actors as competent protagonists. From the very beginning, Jo and Steve aren’t the usual Chinese stereotypes; the kind of buffoons Mickey Rooney wore yellow-face for in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” They don’t have buck teeth or misplace their r’s and l’s, they don’t practice tai chi or kung fu. On the contrary, both men speak English that sounds vaguely American, and while they exist in a universe of Chinese culture – for example, at the house of Chan’s ex-wife, she gives Jo an orange – such references never seem like attempts at exoticism.

The movie also allows Jo and Steve to be very aware of what non-Chinese think of their kind. The former mentions that his fares inevitably ask where a good place to eat at in Chinatown is; he’ll start telling them the differences between regional Chinese cuisines, leading to a good tip. Meanwhile, Steve, who is the more cynical of the two protagonists, bristles over having gone to see “Saturday Night Fever” at a Chinese theater, only to find the opening theme dubbed, “You can tell from the way I use my wok, I’m a Chinese cook, I’m a Chinese cook.”

Finally, the movie shows Chinese can be prejudiced against one another, which may blow some people’s minds. In the history of American cinema, it’s not uncommon for those with similar skin tones to be lumped together, and Asians have especially gotten that treatment. While heterogonous-minded Hollywood still has trouble distinguishing Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans from one another, in “Chan is Missing,” what gets emphasized is that Chinese come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, and political beliefs, and certain ones consider themselves better than others.

For example, early on there is a scene in which Jo, Steve, and Steve’s sister are sitting around the kitchen table, teasing each other about the ingredients in the meal, whether they’re from American supermarkets, as opposed to the more questionable Chinese groceries. They also say unflattering things about “New Money” Taiwanese, disparage “Commie-lovers” who support the regime back in China, and discuss how two Chinese City Council candidates draw from very different demographics within Chinatown.

Being that the main protagonists are American-born Chinese (or “ABC’s”), Jo and Steve initially expect Chan to fit certain stereotypes for a “FOB” – a derogatory term short for “Fresh off the Boat,” or recent arrival to the United States. Steve in particular has a negative image of them, beliefs that get thoroughly subverted over the course of the film. By the end, one character realizes Chan, who could very well be a stand-in for all Chinese, can no longer be so easily categorized. Not that that’s such a bad thing.

Overall rating: *** (out of ****)

EASTERN CONDORS (1987), dir. Sammo Hung Kam-Bo

A dirty, not-quite-dozen goes behind enemy lines in “Eastern Condors,” an action/war movie about Chinese ex-convicts recruited for an impossible mission. Directed by Sammo Hung Kam-Bo, this Hong Kong production has more in common with the aerobic martial arts films of Jackie Chan than “The Deer Hunter,” but despite being more entertainment than message movie, the entertaining parts really shine.

The plot: U.S. military brass assigns Lt. Col. Lam (Ching-Ying Lam) the task of destroying deadly weapons left behind in Vietnam. In order to infiltrate the country more effectively, his team consists of Chinese immigrants, incarcerated men who take the job in exchange for early release and money. These hard-luck types run the gamut between old and young, brave and timid, and although most of their personalities are painted with broad strokes, the camera seems to gravitate naturally towards Shawn (Kam-Bo), whose noble features contrast his 30-year sentence for killing a policeman.

Like a lot of Hong Kong movies, “Eastern Condors” mixes action and comedy, but the overall tone is fairly serious, even with the occasional touches of wackiness thrown in. There are lapses in logic now and then, such as a team member dying because he has a stutter, and it takes him too long counting to 20 before opening his parachute. In another scene, Lam’s commanding officer tells him, “Don’t do anything heroic. Get home safe.” A moment later, however, the same C.O. asks if he can look up his long-lost brother, a soldier who wasn’t able to escape Vietnam with his unit. This raises the question: Isn’t risking your life to find someone presumed dead heroic, not to mention dangerous?

Luckily, the missing soldier’s nephew (Yuen Biao) turns out to be both an expert smuggler as well as a formidable martial artist who knows the terrain. Meanwhile, woman warriors, a familiar Hong Kong action trope, also feature prominently, this time as three freedom fighters every bit as tough as the men. They may even be tougher: in one grisly scene, a guerilla who has been stabbed and had her hand sliced off still manages to take her assailant down with her.

Kam-Bo, who was a stuntman before becoming a successful movie star and fight choreographer, does a good job directing, too, capturing mayhem at interesting angles and using slow-motion when things get impressively hairy. Sometimes the action gets a little too elaborate: in one of many scenes spent engaging Vietcong troops bent on killing the unit, Biao dives down from trees with vines wrapped around his waist, which seems like an awful lot of effort to take out enemies one-at-a-time. Nevertheless, the film’s breakneck pace and sheer innovativeness ensure things never get boring; expect daring escapes from jungle prisons, explosions, hand-to-hand combat of all sorts, even a scene where leaves are turned into projectile weapons.

Interestingly, “Eastern Condors” is ostensibly about Chinese emigrants to the U.S., and as such, the movie can be viewed as reflecting what Hong Kong thinks its brethren’s relationship with their adopted country is like, in all its potential complexity. There are moments with definite subtext: for example, the look of discomfort on the Lt. Col.’s face when the prison warden tells him he should take 100 Chinese convicts, not just the ten he wants, because he’ll “just lock up more.” Later, when one character is faced with the possibility of dying in Vietnam, he resignedly says, “At least I’ll die in the East.”

With regards to the film’s depiction of the Vietcong, it helps to keep things in perspective, and remember that “Eastern Condors” represents the prejudices of a specific nation with its own baggage about that country. However, any critics of “The Deer Hunter” will likely be offended by certain scenes involving Vietcong child-soldiers, and the appearance of a fey-looking general who alternates between high-pitched giggling and single-word screams is curious. At least that main heavy kicks ass, and the movie ends on a suitably sardonic commentary about the Chinese’s love-hate relationship with America.

When there’s no Army helicopter in sight to effect a rescue, one protagonist starts cursing, “F*cking America, goddamn America.” When Shawn asks him where he’s going to go after leaving Vietnam, his answer is, of course, “Back to America.”

Overall rating: *** (out of ****)

DEAL OF THE CENTURY (1983), dir. William Friedkin

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I was under the impression that good, effective satire meant a sly wit and a straight face. “Deal of the Century,” unfortunately, lacks both of those qualities. The movie’s tone is too broad, and the screenwriter practically hits the audience over the head trying to hammer his message home. This likely represented the low point for director William Friedkin, who took the prestige earned from films like "The French Connection" and “The Exorcist,” and spends 100 minutes firing blanks.

“Deal of the Century” centers around efforts to sell the Peacemaker, a remote control drone manufactured by a company called Look-Up. Their CEO believes the pilot-less plane will revolutionize air combat; unfortunately, following a botched demonstration, Look-Up has to try selling the Peacemaker outside the U.S. Enter Eddie Muntz (Chevy Chase), a small-time arms dealer who improbably closed the deal on a contract for the plane with General Cordosa (William Marquez), only to have the South American dictator renege since Muntz wasn’t authorized to make the sale.

It turns out the general will be in Los Angeles for an upcoming arms convention, presenting an opportunity to secure the deal and, for Muntz, earn himself a hefty commission. Complicating matters, however, is Ray (Gregory Hines), his business partner and a foremost aeronautics expert, recently found Jesus and wants out. Another problem is Catherine (Sigourney Weaver), the widow of the original salesman whose death paved the way for Muntz. They meet in South America, but it isn’t long afterward that she’s back in his life, pointing a pistol at his head and accusing him of killing her husband.

Catherine wants part of Muntz’ cut, and proves willing to do whatever it takes to get it. A lot of money does hang in the balance, but director Friedkin and screenwriter Paul Brickman ask, “Is it moral to sell people what they don’t need, especially if it leads to innocent people getting hurt?” Muntz and Ray are portrayed as everyman-types who need the cash to keep their modest weapons-building operation afloat. “If we don’t make the sale, someone else will,” Muntz rationalizes. But aside from these two entrepreneurs and dreamers, America’s weapons industry is mostly portrayed as a means by which large corporations profit from developing nations, or as a big joke, and herein the film’s weakness lies.

Once upon a time, Stanley Kubrick cut a pie-fighting sequence from “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” because he and the screenwriter agreed it took the satirical film too far into slapstick. “Deal of the Century” is not nearly as disciplined: it tries hard to be outrageous, and in doing so, loses any resemblance of tonal consistency. There is a scene in South America where a pistol-packing hood jumps Muntz, but after the latter whips out an AK-47, he not only relieves the would-be robber of his gun, he takes his wallet, too. Although one could interpret this sequence as illustrating how the arms industry has pushed inhabitants of Third World nations into desperation, the way it ends on a bullying note neutralizes its initial humor.

Likewise, when Look-Up’s super-plane malfunctions due to computers overheating, the real criticism – that an aeronautics firm spends billions on the plane, but recycles cheap air conditioners to keep its vital parts cool – gets lost amidst endless shots of eggheads in their underwear and sped-up footage of bystanders fleeing. Again, the movie can’t settle on a tone. Finally, there is a running gag about Muntz getting shot in the same foot repeatedly, which isn’t really funny in the first place, and has the secondary problem of bad timing, turning a serious scene into what feels like a laboriously-long improv where Chase whines about getting blood on his carpet.

The filmmakers also forget many people actually think weapons are cool. One would think effective satire about America’s predilection for guns and ammo should, if anything, be extraordinarily pro-weapon, which is not what we get, save for a sequence in which Ray cuts loose with a flame-thrower (against, strangely enough, the film’s repeat target: Hispanics). Early on, Muntz demonstrates a tape recorder that can turn into a miniature machine gun, a device that’s effective, but not cool-looking. Meanwhile, Muntz and Ray may be ordinary Joes the viewer can relate to, but their business looks conspicuously two-bit; their garage makes being in the death instruments industry seem downright unglamorous.

Still, the coup de grace might be the Peacemaker itself, a missile-packing, black-skinned thingamajig that isn’t the least bit compelling visually, and is aided by effects that look dated compared to “Star Wars,” which came out six years earlier. For all of “Deal of the Century’s” pontificating, going so far as to juxtapose President Reagan’s speeches on Russia’s missile superiority over the U.S.’ with shots of an arms convention that looks an awful lot like a car show – thereby implying weapons are really luxury goods, not necessities as the president would have us believe – given the sheer ineptitude at just being reasonably entertaining, it’s the film that’s the real rip-off.

Overall rating: * (out of ****)

ZIGEUNERWEISEN (1980), dir. Seijun Suzuki

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“Dreamlike” may be the most apt description for Seijun Suzuki’s “Zigeunerweisen,” which doesn’t necessarily rely on logic in exploring the depths of its main characters’ feelings. Both a melodrama and something of a ghost story, it doesn’t have much in the way of conventional narrative thrust; rather, the screenplay seems to feel its way around, guided by the emotional states of the intellectual and middle-class set it depicts.

The first part of Suzuki’s famous “Taisho Trilogy,” the film takes place in a 1920’s Japan where the privileged live comfortably, but perhaps not happily or virtuously. Initially set at a seaside vacation resort, the protagonists include Aochi (Toshiya Fujita), a college professor of German, whose manners and traditional bearing make him the polar opposite of Nagasako (Yoshio Harada), his long-haired and wild-eyed friend. Despite his striking good looks, Nagasako is a hedonist, misogynist, and maybe something worse: when we first meet him, he is being accused of a woman’s murder. Although he claims his innocence to the police, he eventually makes a drunken confession to a local geisha named Koine (Naoko Otani). Aochi, meanwhile, remains friends with Nagasako despite the possibility he is a serial killer.

Photographed in a manner that starts out bereft of sunlight and only gets darker, “Zigeunerweisen” isn’t concerned with crime and punishment so much as the emotionally-charged triangles formed between various characters: Nagasako, Koine, and Aochi; and later, either the two men and Aochi’s wife (Michiyo Ookusu) or a Koine lookalike named Sono. Recurring appearances by a trio of blind, vulgar beggars (who look and act like something out of either a slapstick comedy or zombie flick) provide yet another three-sided relationship, but the film is less an essay than a jangled-feeling procession of images that aren’t necessarily consistent from cut to cut, as well as somnambulant portions comparable to the best of David Lynch.

Some of the film’s more gloriously-deranged moments come with no warning and go without any explanation, but in keeping with Suzuki’s reputation as an instinctive filmmaker, and the context of the protagonists being ambushed by their own feelings and inhibitions, they feel right. A nightmarish sequence where Aochi’s wife tries to escape from Nagasako in her house, only to find him behind every door, reappearing in improbable locations, is one of the best. In another scene, the lights in Koine’s home go out when she and Aochi are alone, replaced by floating mirrors and a single, glowing red lantern. “I feel like I’ve fallen into the fox’s den,” Aochi says. “Am I the fox?” the hostess responds.

Koine later says about the beggars, “They were married to each other. It was the only way they could survive.” The same thing, it turns out, could be said about most of the film’s threesomes. Aochi going home to his woman leaves the rest of female-kind at the mercy of cruel Nagasako, apparently. Likewise, when one character’s wanderlust kicks in, all that’s left for his partners to share is bitterness, isolation, and discomfort. Suzuki and screenwriter Yozo Tanaka stage this pattern for just about every triangular permutation, but it’s setting events in a time period with so much preoccupation over self-pleasure that helps ground the potent, phantasmagorical imagery. Here, the objects of desire tend to become desired objects: Aochi imagines Koine as the kind of mythical creature that could be found in the very books he pores over; meanwhile, the man his foodie wife is infatuated with becomes a thing to be devoured and be devoured by.

As for sex animal Nagasako, he seemingly desires to feast on death itself, visualizing a blood-covered crab crawling out of one of his possible murder victim’s genitals, and commenting afterward, “I fancy a dish of eel.” Indeed, Nagasako looks like a man about to rip the next woman open with his teeth before sucking the marrow out, and this objectification with death eventually extends to Nagasako, whose bones he asks for upon his expiration. Will Aochi be able to extricate himself from this decorum-defying pact with a deranged man, or is a bargain a bargain? Known for what some scholars cited as a “sick sense of humor,” Suzuki offers the ultimate comeuppance for a world in which no one believes in anything: proof that something beyond these shores exists, but that it’s equally obsessed with its own enjoyment. That’s what I got out of it, at least.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING (1988), dir. Philip Kaufman

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A brilliant doctor with a thirst for women; the sincere ingénue who becomes his wife; the doctor’s lover, who understands the thrill of being both pursuer and pursued: these three make up the love triangle in Philip Kaufman’s “The Unbearable Lightness of Being.” Often revered as one of most erotic movies ever made, there’s more to it than just the cool mechanics of sex. Like the Milan Kundera novel it’s based on, the film is set in Czechoslovakia during a time of great political upheaval, and seems to understand how sex is connected to a whole gamut of emotions, all of which can be affected by an event as dramatic as displacement.

Daniel Day-Lewis plays Tomas, who starts off the “lightest” of the central protagonists, concerned for little besides his next conquest. Everything changes, however, during a trip to the country to perform a routine operation, whereupon he encounters Tereza (Juliette Binoche) and immediately becomes smitten with her. The feeling is mutual, but they share a strange interaction at first: he wants sex, while she seems to be looking for friendship and romance. The gulf between them could not be better illustrated than when Tereza tells Tomas that she gets off work at six. “Oh, but I have a plane to catch back to Prague,” he replies, a sly, wolfish look on his face. Tereza, who seems to miss the point completely, only registers disappointment.

Yet their separation is short-lived, and soon enough, the young girl has followed the doctor back home, where the relationship is consummated (for her, it appears to be her first time). Afterward, even Tomas seems taken aback by how strongly Tereza clings to him, but refuses to give up his routine of casual encounters, which include sex with Sabina (Lena Olin), a free-spirited artist who understands his nature better than anyone. It’s never clear just how offended Sabina is by this new woman’s presence in Tomas’ life, whether she secretly had hoped their trysts would lead to something more substantial, but that doesn’t stop her from judging Tomas; at one point, she ponders his face in front of Tereza and asks aloud, “What makes him a scoundrel?”

For her part, Tereza seems to detect there is more to Tomas and Sabina’s relationship than meets the eye. Meanwhile, her relationship with the latter is friendly, but not necessarily friendship, although Sabina does help her develop into a skilled photographer. Always more politically-inclined than her beau, Tereza gets a job at a newspaper, and snaps pictures from the front line when the Soviets invade. When that endangers her life, she and Tomas flee to nearby Switzerland, whereupon the profound differences in their nature start becoming clear: she feels everything too deeply, while emotionally, he floats by on a cushion of air.

The main thrust of the movie involves how these characters grow and change as their lives endure one upheaval after another. The genius of Kaufman and screenwriter Jean-Claude Carriere’s adaptation, however, is in the way the protagonists’ relationships with one another, not to mention their overall attitudes about love and sex, are shown to be interconnected with their politics. Tereza, for example, embraces her home with Tomas and her homeland with equal passion, which leads to disillusionment on all fronts: in Switzerland, she discovers the world’s attention span regarding Czechoslovakia’s invasion has already been exhausted; none of the newspapers will buy her pictures, but an editor does suggest she start taking nude photographs for the fashion section.

With no other job prospects, Tereza looks up Sabina to use as a model, the latter having relocated to Switzerland as well. As she starts taking photographs of her, Tereza, examining the body of her husband’s lover, starts to break down. One gets the feeling she is looking at Sabina and thinking, “How can Tomas trade me for this other woman so freely?” which is not all that different from the question she faces in her work: “How can anyone trade in one passion for another?”

As for Sabina, she, along with acting as another face for the Czech Diaspora, serves to reflect both Tomas’ and Tereza’s qualities back at them (indeed, there is a recurring use of mirrors in shots featuring her). When together with the former, she expresses lust and carnality: at one point, she and Day-Lewis appear in a mirror as a beast with two backs. But like Tereza, her attitude towards love, sex, and life itself seem at least partially informed by her status as a refugee. Later, having no place to call “home” anymore, she thinks nothing of being equally rootless with her sex life, moving from man to man, city to city, especially when her latest beau becomes too serious.

Tomas, on the other hand, subscribes to a moral and political philosophy best summed up as “hands off.” He couldn’t care less about the state of his homeland’s government; he says as much when an article he wrote criticizing the country’s past leaders gets him blacklisted from practicing medicine. A government official tries to convince him to sign a retraction, but he won’t do it, for reasons the bureaucrat cannot understand. Yet the viewer does: although Tomas does not necessarily care who is in power, he wants the freedom to live as he pleases, which includes being able to toss off incendiary letters without reprisal. Likewise, he wants hedonism minus the chains of matrimony, sex whenever the opportunity presents itself, without having to explain or involve Tereza. At one point, she even begs him to bring her to the other women, to let her watch as he makes love to them, but he refuses. To pursue something with absolute freedom, after all, means pursuing it alone.

So what is the solution for the unhappy couple? According to the filmmakers (and we assume, Kundera himself), it is living life simpler, trading urban gray for pastoral green, big city anonymity for community, wealth for subsistence. When survival depends on the fecundity of the land and the sweat of the brow, emotions like jealousy become small and insignificant. Although one might argue such an ending to be tragic, an example of great talent being crushed by the Communist machine, the film itself never seems to argue that anything is lost, but rather, that a different kind of happiness is ultimately gained, one in which deep emotional bonds replace featherweight sex, where one’s being is neither an unbearable or light thing to anybody.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

CITY OF WOMEN (CITTA DELLE DONNE, LA) (1980), dir. Federico Fellini

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A misogynist meets his match in this ambitious, surreal, but ultimately disappointing film by the legendary Italian director.

Snaparoz (Marcello Mastroianni), a handsome, middle-aged lothario, awakens across from a beautiful woman clad in leather boots (Bernice Stegers). He tries to coax her into a bathroom quickie, but their train stops, and she abruptly leaves him hanging. Snaparoz follows her off the train, hoping she will satisfy his burning lust. Instead, she disappears into the ether, having resisted such flattering compliments as, “God, you’re one hot bitch!”

After wandering in the nearby forest, Snaparoz arrives at a secluded hotel. Apparently, a conference among feminists has been scheduled, and the hotel is stacked to the rafters. The feminists come in all shapes, sizes, and intellectual leanings. Some appear friendly toward Snaparoz’s intrusion, while others react with suspicion. Since this is a Fellini film, one must expect theatricality, and some of the angrier feminists are portrayed in a semi-comic way that brings to mind the “femi-nazi” stereotype. Is Fellini ridiculing feminism? I don’t think so. More likely, he portrays them this way on purpose, so they represent what men like Snaparoz fear most: feminist extremism.

The woman with the leather boots reappears in the auditorium. She gives a brief lecture, in which she humiliates Snaparoz with photos of him, his fly undone. Snaparoz protests, then storms out of the lecture hall, only to find everyone in the hotel turned against him. A pair of young feminists seemingly arrive to his rescue. Instead, they convince him to put on roller skates, then send him hurtling down a flight of steps.

Now events conspire to take Snaparoz out of the hotel, into even stranger territory. A husky handywoman with a motorbike (Jole Silvani) agrees to give him a lift back to the train station. But she takes an unfamiliar route—a “shortcut,” she claims—which brings them to a farmhouse. There, she tries to rape him. The handywoman’s mother intervenes, apologizes to poor Snaparoz, and offers to have her other daughter take him to the station. On the way, however, they end up with the daughter’s friends: cigarette-smoking, bottle-swigging, foul-mouthed female versions of Marlon Brando's character from “The Wild One.”

At this point, I thought I picked up on what Fellini was doing. The predator who gives the hitchhiker a lift, then feels entitled to sex; the rowdies who play chicken with their cars, and drive down to the airfield to howl at passing planes—he’s using women to parody the disgusting sexual behavior of men, their aggressiveness on the road, and the way they worship phallic-shaped objects that make thunderous, angry, male noises, I reasoned. As if that weren’t enough, then Fellini introduces Dr. Zubercock (Ettore Manni), a former lord of the land who takes machismo to ridiculous heights. Dr. Zubercock is man whose universe revolves around his penis. He collects functional male erotic art, and his basement is a vast gallery of women whose orgasms he has documented. Snaparoz spends several minutes dancing merrily about the catacombs, pushing buttons, which trigger the recordings of Zubercock’s one-time loves in the throes of ecstacy (Is this supposed to represent the male fantasy of being able to satisfy a woman with a mere button-press?).

But Dr. Zubercock’s universe is rapidly disentegrating. The new feminist rulers have decreed that his castle—the structure “erected” by the male members of his family—must be torn down. To commemorate the end of the old order, Dr. Zubercock throws a lavish party. The man of the castle will enjoy his ten-thousandth sexual conquest afterward. In the meantime, the chief delights include watching said conquest perform a trick where she vacuums up pennies and pearls beneath her dress.

Ultimately, however, none of this penis-worship can distract from the change in the air. The feminist police crash the party. They kill the host’s dog, and nearly place Snaparoz under arrest. His longtime girlfriend Elena (Anna Prucnal), who makes an unexpected appearance, manages to convince the police not to detain him. But their intrusion proves that women are taking over, and men are helpless to stop them—a nightmare for alpha males like Zubercock.

There is something genuinely compelling about this "Twilight Zone"-ish inversion of gender roles. Fellini, however, isn't content simply giving misogynists what they deserve. He wants to show the kinder, gentler side of a man who objectifies women. And so, during the second half of "The City of Women," Snaparoz falls down a rabbithole, into a wonderland that could very well represent his own subconscious.

He finds himself sliding down a roller-coaster track in an amusement park lit up by hundreds of incandescent bulbs. The trip is crosscut with scenes from Snaparoz' childhood. Later, he searches for his ideal mate in an underground labyrinth, wherein a giant praying mantis lives (Although we only see its shadow cast against a nearby wall, it's otherworldly enough to be quite memorable). Does the monstrous insect represent that aforementioned idea of extreme feminism, since female mantises consume their male counterparts after sex? Is it a projection of Snaparoz' mind?

Finally, the hapless skirt chaser finds himself in a hot-air balloon. It is shaped, not surprisingly, like a woman, and poses the possibility of salvation. Or does it? Snaparoz has been led to believe that he will find his perfect woman once he reaches the balloon. But perhaps the notion of the one ideal mate is merely a trap set up by the male mind, which leaves him vulnerable to the advances of more aggressive (and possibly machine-gun toting) females.

A better question: Does the viewer really care about this? We should. Unfortunately, the transition from reality to fantasy is clunky, and some of the latter elements are just too bizarre. Also, the ending greatly disappoints. A film with this much audacity on the screenplay and production levels should go out with a bang, not a whimper. Its momentum should build into an explosive climax, not piss itself away, leaving us thoroughly unsatisfied.

Overall rating: ** (out of ****)