La Dolce Vita

For centuries, people lived with the idea that their ruling and wealthy elites were somehow inherently better, more noble, and more skillful than the common folks, and this view was not changed by occasional revolts and revolutions, including the most famous French Revolution with the motto "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity." Until World War I, the usual concern was how many poor maids and servants were needed in court to balance the testimony of one respected property owner, and whether it was even possible to allow property-less people to vote. World War I and the Great Depression embarrassed the elites so much that the opposite opinion soon spread, which automatically depicts a member of the wealthy class as a parasitic libertine, and it is precisely on this wave that Fellini's La Dolce Vita rides. His film hero Marcello, although not a bad person at heart, repeatedly succumbs to the seduction of the decadent and lewd lifestyle of post-war Italy's pop-cultural and wealthy elites. I disagree with Fellini's one-sided perspective, but that is not a reason for me to have such a detached relationship with the film that I express it with just 2 stars. As time goes by, I generally understand Fellini less and have major reservations about his inability to edit and get to the point. Where you can express the same thing with a two-hour film, there is no reason to watch an extra hour of material just because the director suffers from a lack of restraint. All those frills, digressions, all those scenes that are just there because Fellini fancied it in some movement of his mind reliably ruin my impression of the film. When a film bores you, the best reputation and a handful of festival awards are useless. Overall impression: 45%. (26/12/2014)

While some scenes and the fates of some of the characters probably appealed to me exactly as they should have, I was rather bored for most of the drawn-out, gigantically overblown runtime. Not enough to keep me from making it to the end, but still enough. I will gladly give La dolce vita another chance, because it definitely needs it, but I won't be in a rush to do it.__P.S. Beautiful music by Rota. (17/07/2011)

Sweet, but impenetrable. Just as Fellini can captivate and almost carry away in some dialogues, he can equally thoroughly bore in this demanding three-hour film. Mastroianni plays the bohemian to the fullest, but his Marcello lacks the necessary character weight that such a presence deserves. However, what disappoints me the most is the change from intimate drama to heavy criticism, which makes the whole film disintegrate into several parts that more or less cease to relate to each other. So, I remain somewhat at a loss in my evaluation. I can feel the power that this film can offer, which only a good film can provide, but it couldn't fully reach me. (01/05/2006)

After Nights of Cabiria and 8 1/2, I had the opportunity to see La Dolce Vita, a film praised in all the reviews, and I expected something special and memorable, but I was also worried that this film would miss its mission by a large arc. And actually, I was not wrong about either. Fellini's directorial talents can be felt in many scenes, and some passages are absolutely legendary, the Trevi Fountain or the final "orgy", for example. Unfortunately, I got quite lost in the plot in places and some scenes were incomprehensible to me. So I'm on the fence about the rating. It's an incredibly long film and at times hard to digest, but on the other hand it's a truly fine piece of art. In short, a film that I can appreciate, but unfortunately not value. (27/08/2011)

La Dolce Vita is not a film for everyone. It is a three-hour long portrait of the era and life of the high society. And it is of course quite good at that. It features certain scenes and musical themes that influenced the entire film industry, and have not grown old in decades. Some moments are a real pleasure to watch. But it’s still not enough for me to give it more than three stars. I understand that the message lies in the atmosphere of the times, but the filmmaking craft is not enough when the film lacks a soul and a story that would draw me in. Here I just watch people I don’t care about wasting their lives. They are of course unaware of it, and that’s why the film is called the way it is. (14/01/2020)