La città delle donne

Fellini never made too many films that had absurdly intense sexual themes and dialogue. He made two, and along with `Casanova,' `The City of Women' revolves almost entirely around sex. What `City of Women' has that `Casanova' did not, however, is a beautiful child-like view of things that really makes Fellini's movies fun in the first place. It also has Marcello Mastroianni (one of my favorite actors) and gorgeous surreal cinematography by Giuseppe Rotunno. `City of Women' begins, appropriately enough, with a train going into a tunnel. Marcello Mastroianni is Snaporez, an again man on a train. He begins to flirt with the woman who is sitting across from him and follows her into the bathroom. As he reveals his lustful feelings, the train suddenly stops and she gets out. He runs after her and ends up at a hotel that appears to be hosting a feminist convention, a REALLY exaggerated and completely insane feminist convention. He soon discovers the entire land he is in is populated with women. Snaporaz is both frightened and in awe of the variety of women that surround him, and they represent virtually all viewpoints of feminist issues - from angry man-haters to whores to crazy teenage girls to dancers to roller skaters to older, more motherly women. Throughout the film the women are clearly in total control, and I interpret this film as a womanizer's nightmare, which makes perfect sense.

The film is perfect by no means, but it's still a bit of a treasure if you're a Fellini fan who has explored most of his body of work, and yet are still starved for some Felliniesque fun. This film has that, and a lot of it. The greatest scene in the film is toward the end, where Snaporez crawls under a bed and comes out inside a bright beautiful carnival. He slides down a stylized rollercoaster and mentally goes through some of his life's most memorable sexual situations. This was a marvelous scene, with a beautiful carnival set, and above all, brilliantly scored by Luis Bacalov.

Overall, I have no idea who will like this film. Even Fellini fans seem to dislike it, or even hate it. I found it to be a lot of fun, and visually marvelous.

I am a great fan of early Fellini, and as late as Amarcord I still find much to admire. After that, though, there seems to me to be an inexorable decline in originality. By the time we get to this film the decline is definitely in evidence throughout. Freshness has given way to trademark, vitality to predictability. Mastroianni is still there, as cool and enigmatic as ever, and some of the cinematography remains dazzling. But an air of staleness hangs over the whole film, which apart from its other defects is far too long. Fellini fanatics admire it, that much is obvious, and good luck to them. But most simple admirers will pass it by. It is worth adding that in the troubled and deeply unequal world we live in, Fellini's later obsession with the idle rich is looking increasingly frivolous. But maybe that's just me.

The opening shot of Fellini's "City of Women" is a train about to enter a tunnel, not exactly the subtlest shot to suggest a certain type of act, but in that case it works perfectly for two reasons: the POV is the train so we don't watch the phallic symbol but its 'target', plus the penetration into darkness foresees the trip into the hearts of darkness that awaits Guido, the film protagonist, played by an aged but still charming Marcello Mastroianni. That darkness is associated with women's liberation might divide opinions, but Fellini is not the man to say 'mea culpa'.

So the film opens in a train, Guido has a fling with a beautiful but rather severe-looking woman, he follows her to the bathroom, obviously not to talk about the latest dress fashion in Milan, the two conclude, the train stops, he follows her again, and finds himself in a feminist convention with the most incongruous set of female characters steaming off centuries of repressed anger and resentment against men and patriarchy, expressing in the most turbulent and truculent way their desire to build a more just society rid of phallocracy and ever archetypes that made Italy the Mecca of Latin seduction. And that's only for starters. If you're surprised by the aesthetics, then it's probably the first Fellini you ever saw, and then I'm afraid you didn't pick the right one.

Indeed, this is a film to satisfy the fans (mildly) and disconcert the newcomers, on the surface, like all Fellini movies, "Cities of Women" is a never-ending succession of disjointed vignettes forcing us to endure with enchantment, disgust, puzzlement and even embarrassment the shenanigans, not of a loony protagonist but of a gallery of female characters who cover the whole spectrum of women's attitudes, from the castrating to the nymphomaniac type, from the kitschy to the one who rhymes with it, from the frigid icy intellectual to the voluptuous matron. And in the content, I'm afraid the film doesn't provide more than a certain view of Fellini regarding the aggressiveness of feminism in the late 70s... and whether he sides with these women or looks at them with amused detachment isn't a matter of opinion, Fellini knows where he stands.

The film was made after his "Casanova", a critic against the Italian Don Juan who tries to pass as a sophisticated bourgeois in order to hide his crass obsessions. It's possible that Fellini had the same defiance against a certain hypocritical expression of feminism which, in the name of positive values: freedom, liberation, independence carried the same vulgar obsessions about sex. And in that cacophony of anti-men slogans, rapidly, a think-thank sessions turns into a heated debated where sexual positions and references to genitals are dropped, so it's not much Fellini criticizing the women that hate men, but the women whose hatred toward men cloud their judgment and bring the worst masculine traits in them.

In a way, every intellectual woman according to Fellini has her mind focused on her vagina or her relationships with men, seeing phallic symbols everywhere, and Guido embodies the point of view of men who, like Fellini, grew up with homely big-bosomed women incarnated by their mothers and aunts, came to age in the post-war era with sexually liberated women but then came the late 70s where religion and patriarchy stopped having a saying in everything. However, Guido doesn't handle the hostility with bad spirit but acts like a man visiting a curiosity, a zoo, and tries to understand with false benevolence what he believes to be a foreign language. To Fellini's defense, this misconception about feminism has hold up a long time until the 1990s... and to his defense again, the exaggeration wasn't that exaggerated.

To make a timely parallel, the film reminded me of Mr. Burns' visit at Yale ("The Simpsons"), Fellini at least had the guts to go against the stream and stick to his guns by expressing his nostalgia for the old-fashioned women, and he does so with the same flamboaynt bravura and extravagant flashiness that made his trademarks. And he does instrumentalize women like he did with his own wife Giuletta Masina in "Juliet of the Spirits", where she was given a rather ungrateful role in a movie that was also venturing in the fantasies of her husband, made of the same kind of attractive women, to whom she didn't belong. In "City of Women", women are all here, but for the biggest part of the film, they're not tantalizing him, "La Dolce Vita" had Anita Ekberg sensually inviting Marcello to "come here", this time, the invitation is reversed.

"O tempora! O mores" said the Romans, and Fellini takes us to a journey where women have seized the microphone. However, being the unapologetic macho he is, he proposes a second immersion in a universe where the roles are reversed again and that's where the film loses its pace. Guido visits the house of a man who had 10000 conquests and what follows is another "8½" fantasy ride, made of naughty games and an interesting trial that reminded me of "Pluto's Judgment Day". As to counterbalance his previous act, Fellini had to get back to another Casanova figure, without any sense whatsoever of restrain and measure, he's an artist so carried away by his instincts that he believes any idea that pops up in his mind deserves to be included.

Which makes the film like half an hour too long while it could have stuck to its initial idea and be a social fantasy-induced comment on feminism and a companion piece of "8½". "City of Women" has dazzling imagery, a wonderful set design, and reflects the powerful imagination of the director, what it lacks is just 'control' and a discipline. But it's still worth the watch as his last hurrah before the 80s, and seriously, it shouldn't offend much because the offensive parts are so cartoonish and over-the-top, they're no worse than a Benny Hill skit.

By the time this movie was made Women's issues were alive in the media of all industrialized nations ... This movie was meant to shock and shock it does. Its not crass ... it is very cerebral and highbrow. The character is lost in a sea of femme weapons. This movie actually depicts well the confusion and men and women in a new age. The movie is full of enticement followed by letdown and weirdness ... as is our daily lives in this new age. Have you ever heard that all a man thinks about is sex ... well this movie takes it to extremes. Its funny, scary, enticing, crazy, dreamy, wild, intellectual, modern. I think one of best of Frederico. He got better with age. The movie characters are all over the edge, too much, too weird ... its all for a point.

Continuing my Fellini quest, I found City of Women to be interesting. It is not my favourite Fellini, the pace feels sluggish at times and it is rather shrill and unsubtle in tone. On the other hand, Fellini directs beautifully with his distinctive style most evident. City of Women is visually stunning in scenery, costumes and cinematography. The music is full of cheerful energy and nostalgia, while in terms of writing the autobiographical aspects are interesting, the self-parody and satirical aspects are funny and the dream aspects are appropriately dream-like and in an enchanting way. The story shines with the personal and nostalgic style that is so distinctive of Fellini. The acting is fine, especially from the ever compelling Marcello Mastroianni, though his performances in La Dolce Vita and 8 1/2 are even better.

All in all, interesting but I personally would have preferred more subtlety. 7/10 Bethany Cox