No trip to Rome would be complete without a tour, and that is what is offered here, but don’t expect a peaceful beatific turn around the city (a la Paolo Sorrentino) the music, the noise, the yelling (so much yelling), the machinistic drivings of industry and the traffic all bring the point home: life may be sweet, but it never stands still. When the Fellini-Director character tries to corner the actual Anna Magnani (another great symbol of “old” Rome’s cinematic traditions much like himself) for an impromptu interview, citing her status as a grand dame of Rome, “ Mamma Roma‘s” response and the withering look she gives him is priceless. Federico Fellini brings his directing and writing genius to this fantasy-laden cinematic paean teeming with the filmmakers remembrances of a pre-World War II Rome.
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The collision between the ancient, the merely old and the new is very turbulent indeed in Roma–the old must be effaced, sometimes before our eyes, sometimes to our dismay, yet sometimes to our guilty delight. And so time goes and things build upon themselves, and people too. My epiphany comes at a point where I can say I have seen most of his films several times (This was, to my own surprise, my first exposure to Roma) both at home and at the cinematheque.īeneath Rome’s busy motorcycle-laden streets is an entire buried civilization that sometimes can’t help but be unearthed. Federico Fellinis best non-narrative feature is an intoxicating meta-travelogue, not just of the. And then I also realized that I have felt this way after a Fellini film more than with any other director. “I will never forget this film,” I realized long after watching it, its scenes replaying themselves in my mind’s eye, my brain even reproducing the camera movements. An urban fantasia interweaving recollections of Federico Fellinis young adulthood in the era of Mussolini with an impressionistic portrait of contemporary Rome.