Review of Fellini's Amarcord

This film was a sweet, sometimes hilarious, reflection on Italian life in a small coastal town. It is shot in a simple way that reflects the light hearted humor which permeates the film. The series of vignettes reveals much about the Italian character. From school to church, from seasonal rituals to trips to the store, this film depicts the little moments in life that seem so banal, but a talent like Fellini turns into comedic and nostalgic moments of youth, parenting, life and death.

The lead character, if there was one, was the woman who shakes her hips. She is idolized by the local boys. The camera, in it's scarce use of close-ups reveals her hips shaking. I found the sexual humor to be the funniest part of the film. Perhaps the most comical sequence is when the boy goes to the store for a cigarette and encounters the female clerk with big boobs. She smothers him with her breasts until he can't breath. It reveals the coming of age theme that Fellini portrays in several of his films. We see it in La Dolce Vita. It can apply to 8 1/2 as well in the evolution of the director and the course his next film will take. A movie I haven't seen is I Vitteloni which is all about coming of age. Fellini is a master at showing the anxieties of life and depicting them as comical, nostalgic, or even romantic.

The other sequence which I like the most in Amarcord was the political satire or nostalgia for Mussolini and the Fascist regime. It's almost as if Fellini has a romantic soft spot for the regime. None of the brutality of the regime is shown as in other films, Bertolucci's The Conformist and 1900 come to mind. Fascism seems to be an absurd, comical quality in Amarcord. The parade with the big Mussolini float is so nostalgic for the fascists. The culmination of the sequence must be when the record player is playing the internalional throughout the town. Even the conflict between the Fascists and Communist is comical. All is a farce in Amarcord. Yet, there is a funeral scene.

I agree with ebert.com that Fellini's most productive period spanned his films of the fifties and sixties and Amarcord which was released in 1973. Those films are indicative of a distinct artistic style. The romantic way life in Italy is depicted, the way the problems in life seem to flow by like waves, there is truly something to watching a Fellini film