FELLINI – SATYRICON (1969), dir. Federico Fellini

Here is ancient Rome envisioned by someone with a fever in his brain, and as it happens, Fellini was recovering from a serious illness when he picked up Petronius’ novel Satyricon, and found the inspiration for this depraved, fantastic film.

It should be noted the original novel only exists in pieces. Rather than try and rebuild it, Fellini left the narrative gaps in, and as a result, “Fellini – Satyricon” has a disconnected, dreamlike quality. It is effective nonetheless: we are haunted by its images and sounds; a hollow chime, which reappears throughout the movie, will heretofore be implanted upon the brain. But ask how various scenes of visual opulence are connected, and I could not tell you. As best I can figure, the plot involves two young Romans (Martin Potter, Hiram Keller) who may be scholars or artists, vying for the affections of a younger, androgynous-looking boy (Max Born).

These characters not so much travel as are magically shunted to various locales: a lavish bacchanalia, a galley ship full of captured slaves, into the desert helping kidnap an albino prophet, and face-to-face with the legendary Minotaur. Some amazing costumes are provided by Danilo Donati (who collaborated with Fellini numerous times), and production designer Luigi Scaccianoce’s sets include a building that resembles the Guggenheim Museum crossed with Dante’s Circles of Hell.

Meanwhile, Fellini and cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno try to fit as many garish colors, layers of detail, and strangely-shaped faces and bodies into the frame as possible. Entire background shots are crammed full of people, and at certain times, they are coordinated with a precision that seems mind-boggling. Luckily, the filmmakers also provide a few stark, intriguing moments to keep the feeling of being fatally-overstuffed at bay: panoramic shots of deserts and coasts, the two male leads cavorting with an exotic woman they find inside a cave.

Like many Fellini movies, an earthiness balances out the beauty, but we are not just talking griminess. Characters shout at one another, belch, and lust in such a way that reflects their vigor for living. However, despite how fantastic the whole production is, there is great darkness here, too, as “Fellini – Satyricon” shows the dangers of excess, and explores man’s potential for limitless appetite.

The most powerful and successful secondary characters are depicted as willing to cross what viewers might consider ethical boundaries for art and experience sake: a great actor cuts off somebody’s hand as part of his stage act; a famous poet drinks himself stupid, carries on with a young boy in front of his wife, and has another guest beaten; the emperor himself, who remains unseen, orders boats to sail forth acquiring slaves for his pleasure.

Granted, laws existed in the ancient world, and the historical accuracy of “Fellini – Satyricon” could probably be debated, but the underlying question is a universal one: Can we live our lives solely for seeking pleasure? The movie dramatizes this question by involving the two main protagonists in what is essentially a pointless second half, carried along by exterior forces, greed, or lust. Naturally, when one develops sexual dysfunction, the quest for a cure becomes all-consuming (and leads to that whole fighting the Minotaur-thing – in a labyrinth, no less!). Fellini does tend to reflect his own insecurities in his art, and the theme of male potency reappears in his “City of Women” more than a decade later, but if anything, that only proves the universality of the earlier question.

I am not saying everyone will love this movie. You might argue it’s nothing more than the director indulging his subconscious through a parade of pretty trash, followed by sexually-charged nonsense. My response is: that’s all accurate, but that’s also the whole point.

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

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

From the Prick to the Brain, and Back Again (Return to Main Page)

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 ****)