This is quite possibly the Felliniest of all the Fellini films.
This is a good thing to a point, but I gotta be honest - it really started to wear me out eventually.
The plot here revolves around a middle-aged couple who don't have the best relationship - the husband consistently cheats and lies, and the wife feels intimidated and stuck in the marriage. She has something of a spiritual awakening, however, thanks to mysticism or something (I don't know what to call it - but I kind of hate that stuff and find it hard to buy into, even in a fictional movie), and the film follows her as she works up the courage to leave her husband. It plays out over nearly 2.5 hours. A good deal of it is spent on Fellini doing crazy stuff with sets, costumes, and camera angles in a way that feels distinctly Fellini, and many of these sequences are (I think intentionally) disorientating and sometimes unsettling.
It's all stuff I can kind of appreciate, and I think there's some interesting stuff going on thematically, seeing as Fellini cast his real-life wife in the lead role in a movie about a very bad marriage. If you're in the mood for something like this, it's probably easier to enjoy, rather than just distantly appreciate. But I was only up for like, 90-100 minutes of this; I wasn't really on board by the end. It was just a bit much, and not in a good way, like how La Dolce Vita feels like too much (there, the too-muchness feels purposeful).
This is a good thing to a point, but I gotta be honest - it really started to wear me out eventually.
The plot here revolves around a middle-aged couple who don't have the best relationship - the husband consistently cheats and lies, and the wife feels intimidated and stuck in the marriage. She has something of a spiritual awakening, however, thanks to mysticism or something (I don't know what to call it - but I kind of hate that stuff and find it hard to buy into, even in a fictional movie), and the film follows her as she works up the courage to leave her husband. It plays out over nearly 2.5 hours. A good deal of it is spent on Fellini doing crazy stuff with sets, costumes, and camera angles in a way that feels distinctly Fellini, and many of these sequences are (I think intentionally) disorientating and sometimes unsettling.
It's all stuff I can kind of appreciate, and I think there's some interesting stuff going on thematically, seeing as Fellini cast his real-life wife in the lead role in a movie about a very bad marriage. If you're in the mood for something like this, it's probably easier to enjoy, rather than just distantly appreciate. But I was only up for like, 90-100 minutes of this; I wasn't really on board by the end. It was just a bit much, and not in a good way, like how La Dolce Vita feels like too much (there, the too-muchness feels purposeful).