The Great Beauty Reviews

We are surprised by the ostentatious start opening scene in a luxurious disco to better introduce us to the excessive leisure decadent jet current dolce vita, true protagonist of the film. The aesthetic is so overloaded that moment reminds the most baroque Fellini. From there, the dissection of characters -with occasional ups and downs and narrative sequences in the somewhat uneven interest- complacent tone begins to get used to a certain kind of European cinema, more intent on looking for the easy flattery surface that in diving looking for new ideas or ways of making films.

After portraying Sean Penn in a weirder role in the movie 'This Must be the Place', the director is back with this. This time he chose to portray again an another old man who used to be a novelist. The story commences on his 65th birthday party. With an awesome music and dance at the beginning, it kicks starts to tell the protagonist's rest of the story.

Jep is a novelist who gave up writings a long ago. On his 65th birthday, he decides to enjoy the rest of his last stage of the life. Roaming around the city of ruined Rome, he discovers similar to his earlier phase of life in people who encounters on the streets. Especially the first girl he admired the most when he was in the 20s. The screen shares between past and present in the presentation. Like a man's in search of a great beauty at the age of dusk.

An 2014 OSCAR submission from Italy and nominated for short list as well. Will this justify to be nominated? Well, I think yes. Some of the scenes are not quite relevant to the story, just like dragging in from out of the topic. At a time it was artistic and eye catching. Throughout, the music is what well backed the irrelevant material story. Especially the opening and funeral ones were incredible.

Many scenes had not explained its purpose. Sometime you make scratch your head about not getting the meaning. One of those was the conference of world spiritual leaders takes place. Exactly, it is not about what it's trying to tell us, but the capacity for understanding on stuffs will be tested. This movie can't be enjoyed by everyone, but certain people will find hidden gem and messages or an art form of it in its depth.

I earlier mentioned it is a irrelevant story, it might be a little harsh to say that because protagonist in the movie itself confused about his remaining life. So he begins to see in people his life reflection and sometime he won't understand others character behaviour. On many occasions he asks them about it, but the answers won't convince him till he himself witness the truth. We had seen in other movies where the protagonist goes to India for self discovery, and that is what here this man does in own city.

The new Fellini, no discussion about that, with more diversity in music and characters (Sorrentino loves real music, and there are latinamerican characters. The friends og Jep (great Toni Servillo) have rich details and resist big lines.An extremely sense of decadense till the final segment with the saint and the flamingos and the room with a view in Rome.Is that something close to the grato beauty?

Once again, it was this delightful time to go watch a movie with my dear film club. And once again, I discovered a new director which made the whole thing even more intriguing and, on top of that, I knew really nothing about this flick. Eventually, I have to admit it, it was a rather tough watch, probably the most difficult movie we have seen so far. What was actually about?!? Difficult to say… Middle-life crisis maybe? It is pretty obvious that Paolo Sorrentino tried to make a modern version of ‘La Dolce Vita’ but I’m not sure if his movie will be remembered in 50 years. I mean, right from the beginning, you have nothing really to hang on to, no plot whatsoever, just some random scenes following one after the other. I don’t necessarily need a plot but, then I need then some really fascinating characters. There again, I didn’t care much for the characters, except for the lead, Jep Gambardella. Indeed, this guy was pretty cool, really smart but not a snob. Still, I liked the damned thing though. Indeed, it was visually quite exquisite with no static shots, constantly moving, and there was a great combination with the music. Basically, it is a rather enigmatic feature which doesn’t give you any answer and you are constantly on your toes trying to guess what the hell is actually going on. To conclude, I thought it was pretty good and it is definitely worth a look.