Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Once a year, get comfy in your favorite place to watch movies. Exclude yourself from the world for about 4 hours and watch La Dolce Vita. This is going to refresh your thoughts about the society and discover that since the 60' Fellini have already deconstructed millennia society so well that after watching the movie you need to give yourself one day to heal. Every year. Don't forget. And every year you'll discover more and more about ourselves as society. There's too much to be deciphered in this movie.

'La Dolce Vita' is a film which very noticeably showcases Fellini's transition from his neo-realist roots to the outrageously surrealist style of filmmaking which became his quintessential style later labeled with the word 'Felliniesque'. This is a really, really interesting film. 'Interesting' in the way that although I absolutely understand its appeal, its richness and its philosophical depth, but I can't help but feel a sense of emotional detachment and sense of boredom every time I watch the film. The funny thing is, the emotional detachment is very much deliberate because Fellini clearly wants the viewer to be kept at a distance reflecting Marcello's constant sense of alienation from his surroundings.I read somewhere once (which I agree with) that 'La Dolce Vita' is a reverse retelling of Dante's 'Divine Comedy' since in this case, the protagonist makes the journey from heaven to hell in the thematic sense as is very overtly symbolised in the opening as well as the ending scenes which act as mirror images to each other in the way they both use Christian imagery as well as a gap in communication(in the opening scene Marcello can't be heard, while in the closing scene it is Marcello who can't hear someone else's words). 'La Dolce Vita' uses such Christian imagery and thematic expressions to reflect the hollow state of existence in the midst of the rampant consumerism and materialism during the economic boom of urban Italy during the late 1950s and early 1960s. The superficiality of the shallow life in urban Italy at the time is very explicitly depicted in the film, again very overtly symbolised by the constant presence of the paparazzi that suffocates most scenes. It is a film that clearly makes fun of the aristocratic class as well as the upper elites and socialites with the ridiculous loudness and extravagance, but every little vignette in the film also includes moments of silence which juxtapose the over-the- top loudness. It is in these moments of silence that Fellini spells out the loneliness and pointlessness of their lives. The central character of Marcello is a tabloid journalist who is leading his life in the most passive manner possible. He is constantly on the search for something or someone(Steiner or the women) that will show him that secret happiness and sense of fulfillment. But unfortunately that secret, that magical spiritual connection constantly eludes him throughout the film. The cinematography is absolutely spectacular. The black & white visuals are incredibly vibrant, the use of lighting is absolutely meticulous and the frame compositions are extremely visually appealing. Marcello Mastroianni's performance is brilliant as he perfectly captures the passive nature of his character with spurts of emotions from time to time. What keeps me from completely embracing the film is what I have already mentioned is actually deliberate. 'La Dolce Vita' deliberately uses excess. The debauchery goes on an on, one segment after another. Just like Scorsese does in 'The Wolf of Wall Street', Fellini uses decadence, excess and debauchery in a very repetitive, almost oppressive and unsubtle way. Now even though I can understand what it signifies and I can also understand why the 7 day sequence might have been essential in the narrative if the 'Divine Comedy' structure was being rigidly implemented, but every time I watch 'La Dolce Vita', I can't help but feel a little bored by the monotony of the circus- like visuals and the 3 hour length of the film adds to the overbearing boredom.

I will not delve into symbols. This is a film about life i.e: relation between a man and a Woman and class differences. the followings may contain spoiler Marcello's relation with his fiancée, Emma is not good. He has not a strong affection towards her, he cheats her. Marcello tells that because she is not opening his intellectual, her life only includes kitchen and bedroom, which is imprisoning Marcello. Even though Marcello declare this fact blatantly to Emma and refuses her, he turns back and take her. Then the life of for Marcello changes dramatically and Steiner suicides himself. ( to me Steiner and Marcello has a kind of shared life. Also at the airport when we see that the wife of Steiner looks like Emma herself). As Marcello had chosen the usual rules, marrying his unloved fiancée, he had terminated his life. Marcello now is one of the bohemian peoples. With these people he lives the life as it comes, try to cheer themselves by perverts.İn the movie, marriage is not good. It present a life between kitchen and the bedroom for Marcello. All the couples in the movie has problems. This very clear throughout the film. Marcello does not love her fiancée and is cheating her. The American actress Sylvia looks very cheerful and flirtatious but is very unhappy and at loggerhead with her husband. Even we don't see the wife of the idealized Steiner. Last but not least the final party is about the celebration of a woman separating from her rich husband. The high society is chosen to show the contrasts of life, relations and classes blatantly. The army of freelance photographers which include the Marcello himself represent the lower class. Marcello with his talent and hard work had been able to raise his status and make strong connections with this class. He has his own flat and car, and he flirts with them a lot. the American actress, the parties in the chateaus, the cars, the borderline bohemians are the members of this very high society. The army of paparazzos, Emma, people gathered to listen to the story of little girls seeing Virgin Mary are member of the lower class. The media is good way to become a celebrity and climb to high society. we see this at the scene when two little girls tell that they see Virgin Mary and they try to catch the eyes of media, and people gather to watch this without regarding the heavy rain. As the alternative to marriage is not depicted in the movie, it implies that his is struggle of life.

Society was changing fast in these few years, and this film, displaying a social sophistication virtually unknown and surely prophetic, may have been instrumental in changing it. Perhaps this is the first time the world had seen some of these characters and situations, the dizzy 60s blonde (plus the husky variant), the paparazzi, and swinging - not shown explicitly, but only thinly veiled.Journalist Marcello (Mastroianni) is on a trajectory towards nonchalant decadence, the benchmark being set at the beginning by bored socialite Anouk Aimee, who wants to do it in a prostitute's bed while being watched. This is the first section of the film and must have knocked the audience off their seats. It is also perhaps the finest and most meaningful section, notwithstanding Anita Ekberg in the Trevi fountain (it's a pity Ekberg didn't keep the kitten on her head as it was beautifully symbolic).Each section reads like a portrait of the deadly sins of moral decadence: insincerity (Aimee), superficiality (Ekberg), unreliability (his father), weakness (Steiner), insecurity (his girlfriend), and, least effectively, irrationality (the crowd at the miracle site, a long barely relevant section that the film would have been better without). Individually these things may not bring a man down, but together - the message seems to be - they are enough to erode one's resistance.Actually, the film may not be about creeping decadence at all, but simply nihilism, the inevitable response to the ultimate meaninglessness of things. In that sense, every section here is not about a sin, a failing, but about meaninglessness, the impossibility, despite our best intentions, of being what we really want.As with many Fellini films, there's too much raucousness. There are too many parties populated by insufferable characters. Fellini got carried away here and someone ought to have reined him in. Almost all of these peripheral characters are over-the-top-pretentious which gradually dissolves the realism, and, with it, our sympathy. It's always the quiet moments that work best - perhaps that's a consequence of the dubbing technique, which makes the garrulous scenes unpleasant, but when the circus backdrop falls, the sudden serenity is startling and simple gestures take on extraordinary meaning - then it becomes sublime cinema.