The idea for this film is amusing. A man is dreaming or in a dream-like world run by angry ultra-ultra-ultra feminists who naturally scare him BUT at the same time, he tries to infiltrate their ranks because he is strongly aroused by one of these women--a lady he met and ALMOST had sex with on a train. Again and again, he tries in vain to find her but must contend with angry women who spout dogma like it's an indoctrination camp. This, combined with the obvious Freudian phallic imagery is used to create a man's worst nightmare--women who don't want him and who laugh at his virility! It's all an Absurdist-Surrealist experiment that just doesn't hold up for long--especially because the movie seems to last an eternity. As a result, the original momentum is lost and odd but not especially interesting characters are introduced (such as the stud who is about to have his 10,000th conquest). About the only thing I DID like about the latter portion of the film was the nightmarish amusement park atmosphere towards the end--seeing Marcello Mastroianni sliding down a seemingly endless slide as he passed midway events was pretty amazing from a technical point of view.
Overall, it's a one joke film that probably would have been better as a short. I know that the "Fellini-heads" out there think everything he did was pure genius, but this one just left me cold after a while. Perhaps I am just a plebe, but this and his other mondo-bizarro films like SATYRICON are bizarre and overdone.
Overall, it's a one joke film that probably would have been better as a short. I know that the "Fellini-heads" out there think everything he did was pure genius, but this one just left me cold after a while. Perhaps I am just a plebe, but this and his other mondo-bizarro films like SATYRICON are bizarre and overdone.