Amarcord

I must point out right away that I am not a huge fan of the films of Fellini and I much prefer his earlier films before he became the surrealistic director. So, you probably will assume I am an idiot--that may be the case--the jury is still out on that one! However, I am not alone on IMDb, as a few others also have stated that they felt may of his films were overrated as well.

So why did I like this film? Well, instead of the disconnnectedness and choppiness of 8 1/2 and the utterly depressing nature of La Strada (which I still liked) and Nights of Cabiria, this film was more enjoyable. I don't require films to be fun to be worthwhile, but I think all too often, depressing and unappealing films are elevated to greatness by critics simply because of these aspects. In other words, if the film makes you feel suicidal, critics ASSUME it MUST be good! So why did I enjoy this movie? Well, I liked looking into the old Italy of Fellini's childhood and observing all the interesting and quirky characters--I am a sucker for these elements. In fact, that is why I am a particular fan of the films of Marcel Pagnol--it's as if we are peeking into the private lives of ordinary but likable folks.

This film was first recommended to me by a high school friend who typically enjoys a different kind of film than I. He counts Reservoir Dogs and Mean Streets among his favorites; I am partial to Notorious and Annie Hall. But for his sake, I watched Amarcord, and in the past years have found myself returning to it time and again. I haven't seen any other movies by Mr. Fellini, so I can judge this film only against itself. By such standards, it is a masterpiece. Never have I seen Italy portrayed as lovingly, nor the spectrum of childhood emotions - happiness, love, frustration - represented as frankly. The images are spellbinding - sunlight and fog and great dark seas. Yesterdays are perfect, it would seem, and love exists in what we can remember. So my friend got it right with this one. Amarcord is a kind of magic only the very best in cinema inspire within us. It's the magic that makes us remember.

This film is a life journey. Filled with indelible images: The peacock in the middle of the snow, the awesome vision of the ocean liner--and the blind man crying out: "What's it like, what's it like?", the belly-laugh inducing introduction to each of the instructors at school, the beautiful people, the grotesques. Like life itself, the movie can be perplexing and enigmatic, sometimes magical, sometimes, in the face of the political climate and history, frightening as "simple people just trying to live get caught up in the times they were themselves creating". I don't think any film I've ever seen has so completely captured with such profound insight and simplicity the experience of losing a parent: The visit by the father and son in the hospital in which the mother realizes the awesome finality about to approach, and the son is blissfully unaware in his adolescent "immortality", and the total feeling of quiet and emptiness as the father sits at the dining room table, formerly filled with joyful, loud, noisy life--now emptier than could have ever been imagined before--this whole sequence comes as a powerful conclusion to a stunning film. With a final coda a la 8 1/2, Fellini embraces the audience, telling them not to worry--memories go on, life goes on, changed, altered forever perhaps, but it goes on, beautifully, enigmatically, magically.

Fellini gives us a series of memories, fantasies, and dreams in the vignettes which make up his semi-autobiographical film 'Amarcord' ('I Remember'). The message which comes through is loving, and about the gaiety of life, embracing its madcap characters and moments - moments which will someday live in our memories, hazy though they grow, as little diamonds of light. I loved the scenes satirizing the Fascists and the Catholic Church, and they're all the more powerful in this context, where they are reduced in significance, and just another zany thing Italians dealt with (or deal with) in life. The film doesn't strike any major philosophical chords, briefly coming close as men peer up into the heavens, but the lines uttered as a poem by a construction worker are powerful ("My grandfather made bricks / My father made bricks / I make bricks, too / but where's my house?"). I may be in the minority here, but the film didn't strike me as particularly beautiful, though it was a pleasure to see Magali Noël (Rififi, La Dolce Vita, and many others). It held my interest, but lacked a big punch, even in its sentimentality, though I was always pulling for it, and loved the many references to Hollywood actors from the 1930's. Unfortunately, there is not enough depth here to consider it a great film, and Fellini too often indulged in caricatures and juvenile humor. Net, a mixed bag.

Although on one level this is indeed a warm reminiscence of youth, it would be a mistake to think that's all it is. In fact there is sharp satire at the heart of the film, indicated by the punning title - "Amarcord" is the local dialect for "I remember" (used in preference to the Italian "Mi ricordo") while "Amaro" is Italian for "bitter".

There is considerable brutality among the laughs - a man is maltreated by the Fascists, a small boy tries to kill his infant brother with a rock in an aside the casual viewer might miss.

Rimini stands in for the whole of Italy as Fellini tries to get to grips with what factors in the national psyche (Catholicism, the education system, past imperial glory, sexual frustration) led Italy to invent and wholeheartedly embrace fascism.

These are some of Fellini's own comments on the film:-

"The province of Amarcord is one in which we are all recognizable, the director first of all, in the ignorance which confounded us. A great ignorance and a great confusion. Not that I wish to minimize the economic and social causes of fascism. I only wish to say that today what is still most interesting is the psychological, emotional manner of being a fascist. What is this manner? It is a sort of blockage, an arrested development during the phase of adolescence… That is, this remaining children for eternity, this leaving responsibilities for others, this living with the comforting sensation that there is someone who thinks for you (and at one time it's mother, then it's father, then it's the mayor, another time Il Duce, another time the Madonna, another time the Bishop, in short other people): and in the meanwhile you have this limited, time-wasting freedom which permits you only to cultivate absurd dreams – the dream of the American cinema, or the Oriental dream concerning women; in conclusion, the same old, monstrous, out-of-date myths that even today seem to me to form the most important conditioning of the average Italian."

One can only speculate on what Fellini would have made of Berlusconi.

Apparently the film as we see it was originally planned as part of a larger-scale project in which a man in the present day retreats into a nostalgic reminiscence of his adolescence. For whatever reason that framing device was abandoned and what we have is just the reminiscence.

Fellini described "Amarcord" as "a minor planet... not a masterpiece" but for all that it enjoyed considerable success and remains wonderful to behold. On the downside it could be considered the seed of the later plague of execrable 'adolescence' movies such as "Porky's" and "Road Trip".

Still, you can't blame Fellini for that.