City Of Women

This most dream-like of Fellini films, even exceeding the oneiric dimension of Juliet Of The Spirits (1965) has Fellini-regular Marcello Mastroianni in a situation reminiscent of his role as Guido in 8½ (1963), the director never being shy about reworking his unabashedly autobiographical material, falling asleep on a train and dreaming of the women in his life, past, present, and future.

It is the sort of film that depending on their agendas and/or moods audiences will love or hate as Fellini runs through his inventory of women from virgin bride to buxom whore with the hapless Snàporaz (Mastroianni) eternally victim to his member and his sublimated fantasies about the opposite sex. Either way, and acknowledging that the film is overlong, there is more deliciously inventive imagery here than most director's manage in a lifetime whilst Fellini, tackling feminist theory and disco music, once again demonstrates his interest in contemporary culture and Mastroianni gives a wonderfully understated performance as the maestro's alter ego, wandering through a world he neither commands nor understands.

 

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