Amarcord - Criterion Collection (1974)

emotionally resonant and visually memorable

A Fellini movie is never about the "plot" -- it's about the images, the music, the mood and the vast tapestry of human lives being lived that he conjures. In this affectionate memoir of growing up during the Fascist era in a seaside town, the old master delivers a final, wistful performance. What we get here is a complete picture of an era shown through the eyes of an adolescent.
Yes, the familiar Fellini types inhabit this movie -- the women with massive breasts and bums, the toothless men, the priests, the temptestuous family members -- but in this movie the caricatures are toned down. A professorial narrator shows up from time to time, lecturing us on the history of the town -- and greeted with contemptuous farts by onlookers.
The music as usual is superb.
There is also a serious side to this gentle movie. The bumptious fascists are ridiculed for their ridiculous parades but they are also capable of serious abuse bordering on torture.
Of many stunning images, the scene of a huge luxury liner looming through the mists is perhaps the most memorable. But for me the final scene of a country wedding carried the biggest emotional wallop. The camera slowly retreats as the party breaks up until it is literally saying goodbye to the guests, the party, the memories -- and life itself. I don't know of any other scene in a movie that has the actual feel and quality of a memory. December 29, 2008

Fellini in second gear

Federico Fellini's 1973 Amarcord is a film that has often been linked with Ingmar Bergman's Fanny & Alexander as films by old men looking back on their youth. While this is true, in the main, the fact is that Amarcord has a loose narrative structure, in which the lives of many characters are detailed in comic vignettes, whereas Fanny & Alexander is a straight drama. The film that Amarcord shares a deeper affinity with is one which was obviously influenced by it; Woody Allen's grossly underrated and terrific Radio Days. Which of those two films is better is debatable, although Allen's film is tighter, shorter, and a bit deeper in characterization. Allen's opening classroom scenes in Annie Hall also owe a debt to this film's school-based scenes. Amarcord is not a masterpiece, on par with earlier Fellini classics like Nights Of Cabiria, La Dolce Vita, nor 8½, but it is a very good and enjoyable romp, which opened the 1974 Cannes Film Festival and won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film that same year.
Reportedly, the proper Italian for `I remember' is `mi ricordo', but Fellini used his own native Romagnolo dialect's version of the term a m'arcòrd, to limn his lost boyhood in the coastal town of Rimini- which is the central character of the film. Regardless, the film he constructed is a very good one, which follows a year in the life of a town and its citizenry- from one spring to the next, although it heralded the weaker and even more loosely constructed films that ended his career. This is the last film that most cineastes even to bother arguing the greatness of. Yet, many of the labels applied to it simply are not correct- it is not surreal, for it is grounded in reality, even as flights of fancy take place; it is not a satire, even though there are satirical elements. The very impulse to always definitively characterize something as this or that, without allowing comfortable straddling of boundaries says more of the flaws of the critic than they do of the film. Also, despite the picaresque nature of the film it does not move too quickly. Most of the famed scenes plat out in seven to ten minute stretches where small details filter into the subconscious without even knowing it....The musical soundtrack, by Nino Rota, is stellar, and the best thing in the film, although the cinematography by Giuseppe Rotunno is not far behind, especially in the sunset scene where Uncle Teo is coaxed down from the apple tree and back to the asylum. Yet, Amarcord succeeds because its totality is greater than any of its great to mediocre parts. It may not be a great film, but it is a great display of artistic excellence to marshal such disparate elements into a film that succeeds far more often than it doesn't. Federico Fellini, in this film, shows that he is a great artist, even when his art is not great.
September 7, 2008

A compassionate, funny, and telling film

"Amarcord"--"I Remember"--just may be my single favorite Fellini film. I love it for three reasons.

First, it's a warmly nostalgic look at the sometimes buffoonish, sometimes strange, but always lovable figures whom Fellini remembers from his childhood hometown. I don't know how much in the film is a historically loyal depiction and how much is a cocktail of memory and imagination. But it doesn't really matter how accurate Fellini's portraits are, because what he gives us is an ensemble of characters, from his youthful counterpart Titta, to Titta's hot-tempered father Aurelio, to his crazy "I want a woman!" uncle, to the over-aged Don Juans who still have adolscent libidos, to the unforgettable Gradisca and the hilarious town lawyer, who are charming and real. The only other film I can think of that comes close to "Amarcord" in warm nostalgia is Woody Allen's "Radio Days."

Second, the film is genuinely funny, and sometimes absolutely, laugh-out-loud hilarious. The buffoonish black shirts strutting through the dusty streets; the "do you touch yourself?" confession scene; the dinner scene in Titta's household; and the unforgettable scene in which Uncle Teo climbs high in a tree, throws stones, and screams for a woman.

Third: funny as the film is, it's also got a very definite edgy message. Mussolini's blackshirts may've been clownish, but they could also be brutal. The Church may be comical, but it also encourages sexual repression and prolonged adolescence. The aristocracy may be quaint, but it's also decrepit and parasitical (in the opening spring rite scene of the film, the brief visit to the local count's palace is one of the best in the whole movie).

The movie isn't without its troublesome spots. The fantasy scenes that take place in the Grand Hotel seem out of place, and tend to rupture the smalltown ambience the rest of the film creates. In addition, the illness of Miranda is announced too abruptly, with absolutely no preparation, and her death follows quickly. But overall, "I Remember" is a film to remember. September 3, 2008

on the nostalgia wings

It's a sincere documentary of the era it depicts. Excellent in every respect thanks also to Criterion treatment. May 5, 2008

Don't give up on this one...

Movie set in the 1930's in a small town in Italy on the Adriatic. The movie initially feels like a series of disconnected and chaotic sequences that lack structure and direction. But hang in there - it comes together masterfully. The story of the town, a young boy growing up, a family and the community dealing with the fascist regime is filled with colorful and whacky characters. It is wrapped in beautiful spell bounding scenes of dandelion seeds drifting in the wind bringing on the spring season - to a wide-winged peacock mesmerizing the watchers in light snow fall - to a massive new ship approaching crude boats as the town watches on from far below. This is a funny, beautiful, dreamlike movie...

May 3, 2008

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