A Voz da Lua

The amusing and entertaining adventures of a recently released mental patient (Roberto Benigni) and his band of misfits, discover conspiracies to concur while looking for love.

Acclaimed director Federico Fellini wrote a short treatment for this film in two weeks with his long-time scribe Tullio Pinelli as early as summer 1988. Returning to themes they first explored in "La strada" (1954), the duo crafted a parable on the whisperings of the soul that only madmen and vagabonds are capable of hearing.

The film screened out of competition at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival, where it was panned, misunderstood and/or ignored by the majority of North American critics. One critic boasted, "Absolutely ravishing. I've never been so bored in my life". Ultimately, Fellini's last film became his first never to find a North American distributor. At least until 2017 (more on that shortly).

One might think this is the sort of film that would grow in reputation over time. Those who saw it in 1990 likely did not know this was the final Fellini, and that alone should give it a special place in our hearts. Yet, critic Michael Scott pulls no punches when he calls the film "an unwanted, undercooked, post-meal main course, just as you are ready to slip into your pyjamas." He also says it is "the best example yet of the train wreck that can occur when you give a visionary unquestioned creative control but take away his glasses; it looks stunning but is nigh on incomprehensible."

He does concede however that the "visuals ... rank up there with the most impressive of Fellini's entire body of work." Herein lies what, I think, makes the film worth a second (or third) look. The color scheme is striking, especially on the new (2017) Arrow Films Blu-ray with a new scan. The blend of fantasy, madness and reality is cleverly blended, with one scene of lovemaking while a rumbling train passes quite memorable indeed.

The Arrow Blu-ray looks great, and does bring this Fellini to America for the first time ever. The special features are slim, but it does include an hour-long documentary on the film, which is really indispensable and perhaps would help change Mr. Scott's opinion? Certainly it puts the film in its proper place in the world of Fellini.

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.

This is one of Fellini's best movies, and one of the most underrated pictures of all time. This masterpiece includes all the main themes of Fellini's career. It doesn't follow a "prose style", but a "lyric style". It's like a visual poem. In fact this film narrates the journey of Ivo Salvini (Roberto Benigni) through dreams and memories, which actually belong to the great director. As a matter of fact Salvini, alter ego of Fellini, says: "I love to remember, maybe more than living". The protagonist wanders in the countryside, asking himself about life, and meets Gonnella (Paolo Villaggio), who feels himself oppressed by the giant and factitious society, made of useless appearance. The noisy square is the symbol of a chaotic society (circensian, as Fellini would say), where the individuality is dead, superseded by an alienated mass. This crowd is insensitive to the voice of inner being, to the voice of the moon. In this film the noise contrasts with the silence, the loud public square contrasts with the noiseless countryside, which helps along subjectivity. The omnipresent television clashes with the moments of poetry, like the scenes of Benigni reciting poems of the Italian romantic poet Giacomo Leopardi. Poetry wins over the modern society, which doesn't listen the voice of inner being, deafened by the noise of the Machine. Poetry is like a flight, like a dance, like music (the waltz scene in the disco is wonderful). At the end only the most misunderstood people can catch the moon, that glow of infinite. Nobody can explain what happens. Maybe it's not necessary to explain. It's enough to keep silence and listen. Benigni and Villaggio are two great actors, the soundtrack by Nicola Piovani is impressive and touching, the set design by Dante Ferretti has a beautiful imagery, and the direction of the master is outstanding as usual. All that enables us to listen for a moment the voice of the moon.

An astounding movie that left me behind with a smile on the face. Its ending reminded me of the annoying feeling when having woken up after a beautiful dream.

In fact, the movie has something of a dreamland, where almost everything seems possible and space and time have lost their limitations. In Salvini, plaid by Roberto Benigni, it is presenting a modern fool as its very likeable main protagonist, who on his ways around a small Italian town meets all kind of weird characters and hears voices from the ground of the wells. The movie could also be described as a modern fairy tale that in some parts becomes quite reflective when disclosing some absurdities of modern life. When seeing those it becomes in a way comprehensible that Gonella, the 2nd main protagonist, has developed a certain paranoia and believes in a big world conspiracy.

It is also true that the movie does not have a lot of thrill because it is lacking a real story line. This fact, however, kept alive my curiosity because it remains unclear throughout the movie where the film is heading at and what strange things are next to happen. This concept does not necessarily work out but grandmaster Fellini succeeds one more time in presenting us a stream of lively and fascinating images. Some typical Fellini ingredients like madonna statues and fairgrounds are part of them one more time.

Overall, a film like a poem, that certainly is not everyone's cup of tea.

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.