Fellini - Satyricon (1969)

I really couldn't quite watch this. And bear to look at.

A terrible monstrosity of a film. Filthy colors, music with an enormously high kitchen utensil drum factor, endlessly whining characters, noise, ugly and even uglier people (who are supposed to pass for beautiful, apparently)...

Visually, I really didn't like this at all. I constantly felt like I was watching a stage play, swaying exuberantly in the cheapest sets and kitschy colors. The music is merely irritating, just like the endless streams of useless conversation. Characters often just tell you what's happening; they'd be better off keeping quiet. The lack of a story doesn't even bother me, but at least make sure there is something else that can hold my attention.

I readily admit that I didn't finish watching the movie, but I'm voting anyway. After an hour of irritation and a quick skip, a 0.5* is more than justified. What a monstrosity.

Translated from Dutch · View original

To be honest, I couldn't really connect with Fellini's Satyricon. It is a dreamlike film, and intended as such, but not in a pleasant way. There is no discernible narrative thread whatsoever, with us often jumping from one weird scene to another, featuring intentionally strange transitions and (apparently) intentionally poor synchronization. Many of the scenes come across as campy and kitschy; it seems like a sort of deliberate freak show. Sometimes it is quite beautiful, but more often the scenes are simply disturbingly loud and ugly, with a campy and decadent aesthetic that doesn't make me very happy. It is surprising how a film that is so busy, loud, and over the top can still become boring, yet in this fragmented manner, it turns out it is possible.

Translated from Dutch · View original

Fellini, in his decadent phase, makes a film about the decadent phase of the Roman Empire during the decadent phase of hippiedom. The result is a mess. A fascinating mess, but still: a mess. Characters having a blazing row are suddenly best friends (and lovers) the next scene and vice versa; characters who seem important vanish into thin air; characters who don't matter at all get lengthy introductions. One moment we're here, the next scene we're there, and what happened in between: cut out? No budget left for it? Other scenes just go on and on and on... Oh, and Fellini may be a great filmmaker, but fight scenes are clearly not his strong suit. Naturally, there's also a real Italian dub to make everything just that little bit more distant.

But just like with Jodorowsky, it is a lot of annoying hassle until it clicks and suddenly becomes a brilliant visual spectacle. Because Fellini was the genius filmmaker Fellini, that happens just a bit more often than with Jodorowsky, who was more of a tinkerer with megalomaniacal ideas. More budget, too.

In my opinion, strangely enough, in all its psychedelic decadence, this is actually one of the more accurate films about the Roman Empire. There is an endless banquet where the rule is: the weirder the dish, the more status (beer!). A liberal sexual morality. And a real man goes for young boys, because they are better than women. Collapsing tenements. Constant coups and brutal violence. Lots of fortune-telling and oracles. The message about vulgar ultra-rich people suddenly developing strange fascinations with death and starting to harbor artistic pretensions could easily be applied to the present day.

But even at his best - 8½, La Dolce Vita - a Fellini film is a lot of film and here it is simply too much, despite the reasonable running time of just over two hours.

(Seen at De Uitkijk)

Translated from Dutch · View original