"We do not go to Fellini to immerse ourselves in story
and character or to encounter ideas. What we want from the maestro and what he
gives us are fabulous adventures in feeling - a decidedly original mixture of
nostalgia, poignancy, and joy that is unmistakably Fellini's own."
John Gould Boyum, Wall Street Journal, 1981
"At the Cannes Festival the papers said that
Fellini's last film was a total disaster, and that he himself had ceased to
exist. It's terrible, but it's true, his film is worthless." Andrei Tarkovsky,
1981
I’m around the same age as Marcello Mastroianni when he
made this film and just a few years younger than Federico Fellini who produced,
directed and wrote this fantasy in which men of our age come face to face with
feminism. I’m a generation or two below them and from a different cultural
environment but I can’t say that I don’t know men like Snàporaz, Marcello’s
character and therefore a cypher for Fellini. So, other than a snapshot of
middle-aged male reactions to feminism, what can we make today of a film that
so divided opinion at the time. We should also bear in mind what the director
wrote about generational difference in the late sixties: “…faced with one of
today’s youngsters, the young man of 1938 is like an accountant faced with a
butterfly.”
I’m no butterfly counter but it’s safe to say that City
is a startlingly inventive visual experience full of magically real episodes
that are beautifully shot by Giuseppe Rotunno – Fellini in colour is always sweet-shop
overload but capturing his mind’s eye took some doing and Rotunno worked with
him on eight films. Mastroianni is also at his finest as the confounded
Snàporaz who’s good nature allows him little awareness that he is part of a
system of patriarchal oppression; it’s all a complete surprise to him, even
when the points against become ever more personal.
Bernice Stegers gives Snàporaz the right impression, or so he thinks. |
The film begins with Snàporaz
waking up on a long train journey only to catch the eye of an attractive and
enigmatic woman (Bernice Stegers) who excites his sexual interest so much he
tries to make love to her in the toilets before mindlessly following her off
the train at her station, which turns out to be a field in the middle of
nowhere. Still following his base instinct, Snàporaz is left stranded as his
train pulls away as does the woman after she calls out his crude advances.
Snàporaz begins a search for civilization only to find a
hotel in the middle of a wood hosting a feminist convention with a particular
focus on him; the woman from the train even pops up to target him personally.
Snàporaz is initially fascinated and amused but this soon turns to concern. He
is helped away from the febrile debating hall by a young woman, Donatella
(Donatella Damiani) who seems friendly enough but soon has him on roller skates
as dozens of other women come into this new room and skate at and around him.
He is helped escape again this time by a large woman
(Iole Silvani) who finds him fallen at the bottom of the stairs and then offers
to take him to the station on her motorbike. It’s a ruse though and she tries
to have her wicked way with him in a greenhouse before being chided by her
mother. It’s role-reversal for Snàporaz but things get even worse when he is
rescued by girl gangs who drive too fast and eventually at him.
It's a trap and there are too many of them to quote George Lucas. |
He seeks refuge at the large country house of Dr. Xavier
Katzone (Ettore Manni) the ultimate woman hunter who has a hall of remembrance
where he has recordings made of his 9,999 conquests… In the main hall Snàporaz
finds his wife Elena (Anna Prucnal) who may become the 10,000th and
he even has a cake to celebrate. Yet, whilst noting this impressive record, the
priapic Doctor is now resolving to say goodbye to women… Then the police
arrive, made up of the women from the hotel including the frisky motorcyclist
and inform him that one of his precious pet attack dogs has died, a very male
breed, a hunter for a hunter.
Dr. Katzone’s house is bigger than the hotel where the
women convened and it contains a hall paying tribute to every conquest;
pictures with recorded highlights which delight Snàporaz, who flicks them on
and off with glee savouring their reduction to recorded signifiers of male
dominance. There’s no love just lust and conquest. The film snowballs, and
there’s no let-up in the escalation of the director’s cavernous visions. Fellini’s
flash can be off-putting – Roma on the small screen is a tough watch; too much to squeeze through -
and yet seeing it in cinema contains the exuberance rather than magnifying it. Either
way, you have to tuck into Federico’s feast even when, cinematically speaking,
you may just want to enjoy a contemplative sandwich.
But on it goes as Snàporaz’s unrepentant and, to be
honest, almost uncomprehending, sexual attitudes are examined by a swirling
array of larger than life women including his own wife, arrived to sing
operatically and to throw herself at her reluctant husband:“I want to make love!”...“But it’s raining…” comes back his excuse as he looks for the younger women.
She’s less chance of lighting his fire than setting the
drenched woodlands ablaze; he wants the ones he can’t have and he wants them
all. As in a dream he chases two nearly-naked nubiles – including the ever-smiling
Donatella until, unable to sleep in the huge bed provided for himself and his disappointed
wife, he crawls underneath and through a hole to find a fairground in Katzone’s
unfeasible basement.
As he descends on the slowest of helter-skelter slides,
he sees his romantic life played out in front of him and his restless search
for the perfect woman becomes a trial with the reward of a giant inflatable
balloon variant of this impossible creature. Once more Marcello takes to the
skies in a Fellini dream… or… is it?
Welcome to the House of Fun... |
The BFI Fellini season continues for the rest of the
month, full details on their website.
Silent film clearly was a strong formative experience for young Federico... |
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