Review of Satyricon (1969) by Richard-Yves S — 01 Dec 2007

The Romans were a strange people. They didn't think or act like us, despite the apparent similarities in our respective cultures. How to evoke these differences? If you are Fellini, you turn your back on verisimilitude and depict the Roman world (inevitably) as a sideshow.

And by God it works. Nothing is recognizable here--boats, buildings, behaviour. This is a world in which the kidnapping of hermaphrodites makes perfect sense--in which arbitrary activity obeys an internal logic we can only guess at.

This isn't really about "decadence" (a much-abused, and essentially meaningless term) or about hedonism or anything so obvious. It's a reminder that otherness is pervasive and undeniable.