Review of La Dolce Vita (1960) by Alex V — 05 Jan 2009

Oh my. Call me pretentious, call me stupid, call me insensitive, or whatever other excuse, but I don't see what all the fuss is about here. All I'm seeing here is a bloated, self-indulgent three-hour series of vignettes featuring boring rich people do even more boring things. After the first hour, it was beginning to dawn upon me that the movie was simply going in circles, but I stuck with it, hoping to see some sort of overarching character development. Once the credits rolled, I still had nothing. Marcello plays his character well, but the script gave him nothing in terms of character development or dynamics. The rest of the cast had the same issues.

Now that I think of it, movies that center around characters that end up being swallowed in their own self-indulgence can certainly succeed. The first one that pops into my mind is There Will Be Blood, One of PT Anderson's masterpieces. In fact, both films are similar in being incredibly striking and lovely, visually, as well as having main characters that are, for lack of a better term, lame. The big difference is that La Dolce Vita has nothing to offer in terms of general interest after a while, and this lack of compelling storytelling makes its bulky running time completely unwarranted. I thought the thing was incredible to look at, but as a whole it just felt empty and draining in terms of basic storytelling. I feel as though it is best watched in the vignettes it seems to separate itself into, for the fantastic directing and the sparks of human insight that seem to get quickly extinguished by its own indulgence. Don't get me wrong, I love Fellini, I just don't love this.