The Great Beauty

to Felini. to the Rome who remains an obscure legend. to a kind of Visconti universe. to a refuge. eccentric, bizarre, comfortable. a great trip in a well known universe. full of cultural references, in a sort of escapes from yourself in the most profound​ yourself. a magnificent show. or another La bella vita. the same, after decades. but so different for the courage to be itself. a homage and a return. to the old things remaining, always, fundamental.for the extraordinary beauty, for memorable scenes, for a sort of confession of another Giuseppe di Lampedusa, for the scene of meeting with Fanny Ardant, for the venerable nun , for the dose of fascinating freedom.

This film is a modern masterpiece of Cinema. Luca Bigazzi's cinematography is beautiful, with elegant tracking shots of Rome that draw the viewer into the loveliness of Jep's world (even if age and experience seems to have robbed him of the ability to feel and see this great beauty himself).

The enchanting score of choral works by David Lang (I Lie), Vladimir Martynov (The Beatitudes), John Tavener (The Lamb) and Arvo Part (My Heart is in the Highlands) give depth to the wonderful images of Rome. This haunting soundtrack replaces the need for dialogue and adds intensity to Servillo's melancholic performance.

Servillo's acting is superb from his moments of dry humour to the heartbreaking intensity of those feelings he cannot quite hold on to.

La Grande Bellezza gives a window into Roman life that is probably only fully understood by a fellow Roman. However all can appreciate the aesthetic pleasure of Sorrentino's Rome and the bittersweet meanderings of its characters.

This is a cinema of the highest order, imbued with elegance & style. For the viewer it is like swimming in honey. Grazie Signore Sorrentino.

This movie's title means "The Big Beauty", and the story is set in Rome. Of course, the city is prominently featured, so much and so long that it makes you think that "Rome" could be probably credited among the actors, at least for a supporting role, as "herself". But buyer beware (or, to appropriately use the Latin, Caveat Emptor): this is not a film about the beauty of the immortal city. In a nutshell, I would say that this movie is about the constant research of beauty and meaning in life by an aging intellectual named Jep. I am sure I won't give away too much if I say that, eventually, he will became aware that the beauty in his life is not in Rome – heck, it's not even in the present: poor Jep has been searching for so long in the wrong place, and in the wrong time.

Somebody could be annoyed by the fact that nobody in the movie seems never to do any kind of work at all -- curiously enough, the only self-proclaimed hardworking man happens to be a very seriously-looking international criminal! But for most of the other characters, money looks more like a cause, than a consequence of life. Without the restraints of needs, left with no practical excuses for not being happy, they still accomplish somehow the no small feat of spoiling their lives with various forms of suffering and pain.

The story is wonderfully told both by images and dialogues. It takes some kind of "magic realism" turn towards the end – but that's balanced by the steadily cynic tone of the stream of consciousness coming out from Jep, wandering around the city like Marlowe in Los Angeles. Paolo Sorrentino is a writer, too: he has written a couple of enjoyable books starring a character very similar to the one depicted in the movie, a cold bastard bon vivant with a surprisingly soft heart. Mr. Toni Servillo provides flesh, and bone, and looks, and wit for this character. Just another major performance from the greatest Italian living actor: at the end of the movie it leaves into the audience the clear idea to have actually known a real person, not just a fictional one. The whole supporting cast is great, and very well-picked. A special mention goes to Sabrina Ferilli and Carlo Verdone, two very famous actors in Italy, shining here in two supporting roles where both of them display their undisputed talent.

This lengthy (142mins) intriguing, complex movie follows the reflections of former novelist, Jem Gambardella (Toni Servillo), as he contemplates his past and current life, a life, it would appear, of lost opportunities both personal and professional.

As a member of the wealthy elite of Roman society, he participates in their empty pastimes; parties fuelled with drink and drugs, bizarre art events and casual sexual encounters with beautiful but soulless women. Gambardella is both participant and observer, watching himself as much as his associates, mysterious animals trapped in the gilded cage that is Rome with all the stunning beauty of its architecture, fountains, sculptures, and paintings.

We are shown a funeral where Gambradella acts out the etiquette he has just been describing to us; a dinner with a cardinal who seems more interested in food than faith; a saintly nun of extreme age mounting a stone staircase on her knees and crawling painfully onwards and upwards towards an image of Christ . . . Everywhere, life presents contradictions, material and spiritual, emotional pretence and genuine feeling, the Eternal City and its mortal inhabitants, . . .

If all this sounds too heavy, everything is carried along by a welter of gorgeous images complemented by music that varies from the ethereal to hefty thumping dance beats. And the actors' performances are never less than utterly convincing.

At one of the parties as the massed participants enter into yet another conga-style dance, Gambardella remarks that 'we have the best trains in Rome because they don't go anywhere.' Everything comes back to where it starts and ends where it began. So in the long final credits sequence we float languidly beneath the bridges of Rome, left to contemplate the setting in which we first encountered the genial but disillusioned Gambardella.

This is an sumptuous, sensuous, fascinating movie which for me at least probably needs more than one viewing to fully appreciate. Don't miss it!

(Viewed at Screen 1, The Cornerhouse, Manchester, UK, 12 September 2013)

Fifty years ago, Toni Servillo wrote a novel. It was praised, won an award, and he came to Rome and got caught up in the party set. He earns a living as an interviewer. Occasionally he is asked why he never wrote another novel, and he offers various, patently untrue reasons. Now his first love, whom he has not seen in more than forty years, has died. He turns thoughtful. He remains amused by the circus of the party set, but shreds their pretensions with a few well chosen words. He is obviously suffering a spiritual crisis, but when he tries to seek advice from a cardinal who is said to be next in line for the Papacy, the man walks away.

The obvious move to compare this to is Fellini's 8½, but I see its roots in Samuel Pepys' dictum that "when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life." Servillo is not tired of life, but he is tired of this life, and sees death coming for him. He is perfect in the role.

Writer-director Paolo Sorrentino fills the screen with beautifully shot images: the overblown spectacle of the party set trying to amuse themselves, and the quiet beauty of the old Rome, its bridges, the shores, the Colisseum across the street from Servillo's apartment, the remembered image of his first love. It's a rich, beautiful, thoughtful, wistful movie.