Amarcord is an episodic coming of age film from Federico Fellini. The film might have some autobiographical elements but it is a fee flowing almost anecdotal film of eccentric characters including some buxom women in the village of Borgo San Giuliano in 1930s Italy where Fascism is on the rise.
There is buxom Gradisca who runs a beauty parlour and arouses men's passions. Volpina the thin blond good time girl, the rotund and even more buxom tobacconist, the tiger like blond schoolteacher. In amongst this is adolescent Titta who plays pranks including on his father who gets extremely irate and his mother who always has to come to his son's defence.
The other boys in the town regularly touch themselves and the local priest is obsessed with whether the boys touch themselves and accuses them of masturbating as soon as he looks at them.
The film has fantasy sequences such as when a Sultan checks in the Grand Hotel with his harem. It has dark sequences as when Titta's socialist father is brought in for questioning by fascists and abused.
The film consists of little vignettes, it opens with a sequence of puffballs signifying that the winter is gone. There is a sequence where fog is so heavy a man cannot find his house even though he is standing outside it.
The film in some ways accompanies Fellini's 81/2 and lacks the tight narrative structure of La Strada. It does feel bloated and also strangely empty. This is signified by the ending because it just ends.
There is buxom Gradisca who runs a beauty parlour and arouses men's passions. Volpina the thin blond good time girl, the rotund and even more buxom tobacconist, the tiger like blond schoolteacher. In amongst this is adolescent Titta who plays pranks including on his father who gets extremely irate and his mother who always has to come to his son's defence.
The other boys in the town regularly touch themselves and the local priest is obsessed with whether the boys touch themselves and accuses them of masturbating as soon as he looks at them.
The film has fantasy sequences such as when a Sultan checks in the Grand Hotel with his harem. It has dark sequences as when Titta's socialist father is brought in for questioning by fascists and abused.
The film consists of little vignettes, it opens with a sequence of puffballs signifying that the winter is gone. There is a sequence where fog is so heavy a man cannot find his house even though he is standing outside it.
The film in some ways accompanies Fellini's 81/2 and lacks the tight narrative structure of La Strada. It does feel bloated and also strangely empty. This is signified by the ending because it just ends.