La città delle donne

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.

I'm not going to pretend that this is classic Fellini, or a masterpiece of Italian/European art-house cinema, but.....there's a lot going on in this movie that rewards a lengthy attention span. Mastroiani plays the archetypal middle-aged menopausal misogynist, the oldest swinger in town, calling women everything but women. Sows, mares, bitches, etc.

Fellini effortlessly sets him up for a long slow surreal fall from grace, deconstructing his fear of women in the process. It's a temporal culture clash, as stiff monochrome macho sexism meets technicolour badass feminism head on.

There's a few of Fellini's sublime production games going on in the background, most notably the orgasm orchestra that builds from the sono-portraits of Marcello's past lovers. The symbolism on display throughout is typically oblique, but it's effortlessly played for laughs in a way that few of his earlier films managed.

I've seen most of Fellini's output, from La Strada to Ginger and Fred, and for me this movie stands out along with those two as an accessible entry point into the satirical world view of one of Italy's most interesting directors.

It's certainly not a masterpiece, but it's definitely a wry look at the sexual mores of the day. And the cinematography ain't bad either.

My adoration for this seemingly out-of-control fantasia of male fears of woman as individual or Love Goddess is somewhat unreasonable; I do not tire of watching City of Women and have subjected others to Fellini's episodic wandering, loaded as it is with spectacular imagery; remarkably, some of them remain my friends.

Early Fellini films such as La Strada and Nights of Cabiria are really fairly conventional films with unconventional characters, easy to follow and memorable for leading characters such as Gelsomina or Cabiria. In the early 1960's, Fellini experimented with drugs and underwent extensive psychoanalysis and the results of experimentation were reflected in his films, which became more personal visions and while delighting some viewers, frustrated others for their lack of linear narrative.

City of Women is one of those, jammed with bizarre imagery, full of often peculiar fantasies, as it follows the Fellini stand-in, Snaporaz, as he cuts a train journey short to follow a female conquest into a world that he has never considered, a world where women dominate, a world that addresses many male anxieties and fears, a dream world full of nightmares. I first saw this film in 1980, and thought it only fair; with the passage of time I think it has only become more relevant to male-female relationships, and the imagery, in contrast with most pallid films made today, visually electrifying. While realizing that others may react in critical horror, my vote for this Fellini is "Nine"!

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.

La città delle donne aka City of Women is not a perfect movie, but if you like to watch a juxtaposition of grotesque, absurd and by the powers of Eros and Venus driven scenes, this one will be an entertaining experience to you. If I watch one of those very rare moments where movie-making and art meet and greet, I just wonder how it would be, if we would get those kind of movies on a regular basis and not all that Disney, Marvel, Hollywood stuff - Haute cuisine instead of stale and lukewarm Cheeseburgers so to say (a well made Cheeseburger can also be a fine experience for one's tongue). Anyway, La città delle donne is not my most favorite Fellini (Satyricon and La Strada are) but no matter, from time to time I still get myself drowned in this feverish dream and follow Mr. Mastroianni's odyssey.