A Voz da Lua

This is a sad swan song from the director. In many ways. It is a rambling affair, too wordy and shot as if on sound stage with harsh and uncompromising light. Yet there is something about the (oh so Italian!) characters that come and go we imagine, throughout the overlong running time, that the whole will spark into life. It doesn't but what is so sad is that there are, now and again, moments that jump out as trademark Felliniesque visions. Flimsy white lace costumes revolve in unison, a beauty contest promises to burst forth, a group of unfortunates gather to catch a glimpse of 'pussy' as a neighbour undresses and finally a tethered moon brought to Earth. But overall and despite treasurable seconds this stands as a rather forlorn and unconsummated endeavour. A sad farewell indeed.

Probably the only time in cinema where Michael Jackson ("The Way You Make Me Feel" specifically and an inspired dancr sequence) gets a transition into the Blue Danube waltz, and rhsn back again so that's certainly something!

Plotless, rambling, and has more than a few moments where Fellini and his crew place actors and light and setting and music just so to make cinematic poetry: memories as stanzas broken up by the little bits where story appears to be taking place. It sounds contradictory, but what keeps it from being among the filmmaker's best is what is still very interesting about it: Benigni is s man who (after a little time to surmise) is out from a mental hospital and is wandering from town to town, looking for a woman that he adores from his past and interacts with other characters who have their own histories and mysteries and whatnot... And that's it, that's the movie - and all the while, to the director's credit, he gets a real performance out of his star and not merely circus shtick (which is what I assumed many years ago when I first heard of this that it would be).

As with many Fellini, it may just be too much to take in in one sitting, but on the other hand Im not sure I... Care that much about this character and his search for this woman who really doesn't want to see him. And yet, there are brilliant scenes and flashes of greatness through out, wild bits like the one man who gets married and when his wife has sex with him it becomes like being on an actual train that rocks and rolls and creates panedemonium and smoke, or the Blue Danube dance and everyone at the dance breaking out in applause, or that shot where all of those figures with big black garbage cans walk in formation into town. And other times, just as impressively, Fellini slows his usual madman roll snd lets Delli Colli keep the camera more still (or occasionally, something I don't remember from him before, handheld).

At its most enlightening and satisfying, it's a melancholy but entertaining journey through memory and not even desire so much as longing, like tbe ending with Benigni looking up at the moon. It's also about twenty minutes too long (that long sequence in the town square where, uh, suddenly there's a big screen up showing people crying and begging to a fake moon - it really dragged to nothing satisfying), and I wish there was a little more time to understand what the Prefect character was all about as a lost soul. But, even with its flaws, it's still a lovely experience because it's Fellini finding ways to rediscover his passions and interests in exploring memory, regret and the desire to want to fly in the sky, figuratively and literally.

The bitterness is the basic trait of this last Fellini. You discover all what you know or define as Felliniesque. You admire Roberto Begnini , being more prepared to remind scenes from his last Pinocchios. You feel pity and admiration about characters. And you feel the fall of a world, suggested, in so precise manner, by entire atmosphere defining a simple - baroque good bye. A film only reminding themes, characters, idiosincrasies. And the bitterness as basic virtue.

Not many directors would choose the end of their career to head off in an entirely new direction, but that is very much what Fellini does here. This was his first film based on a novel (Ermanno Cavazzoni's "Il poema dei lunatici") and quite a radical departure in terms of style.

In a move which apparently alienated many of his traditional audience, the film-world is almost entirely the one experienced by the central characters, Ivo Salvini and to a lesser extent Gonnella. This subjectivity of approach was of course used in "8 1/2" but in a less extreme and clearly autobiographical way. Here, Fellini makes the brave decision to keep contextualisation and explanation to a minimum, leaving the unwary viewer flailing about in search of a foothold. As Ivo's state of mind drifts between lucidity and hallucination, we seldom know what is 'real' and what is imagined, even down to the words spoken by other characters.

"Felliniesque" themes such as the love/fear of women, religious superstition and motifs like madonna statues and mountains of pasta are revisited from this rather skewed perspective, but the film overall has a dislocated feel which is far away from the likes of Roma or Amacord.

Interestingly, Benigni is asked to act here, rather than doing his usual schtick, and does well as a Chaplinesque figure who occasionally reminds one of Guilietta Masina.

This is certainly not what you might call classic Fellini (he confessed to a crisis of confidence writing it) but there is much to enjoy and to wonder at in this last work. The man himself regarded it as the "orphan" of his films and hoped it would come to be better regarded.

Devotees of Terry Gilliam will note the original of the waltz scene lifted for the following year's "Fisher King".

Don't know why I'd never seen this one before, but I'm sure glad I've seen it now.