The Great Beauty

We've seen this before. The Great Beauty is a clear tribute to the famous Fellini film La Dolce Vita, and the comparison with this film is obvious and made me return to Fellini's probably most famous film years later. I consider Paolo Sorrentino to be the best contemporary Italian director who can create fantastic experiences with images and actors. As for the form, I think he reliably surpassed Fellini, as Sorrentino is truly brilliant in that aspect. However, when it comes to content, Fellini reliably defeated Sorrentino. I saw beautifully shot images, and decadent scenes from the lives of today's Italian intellectuals and those who eagerly play that role, but overall, I don't really know what Sorrentino wanted to convey to me. I appreciate the soundtrack and I repeatedly played the song "Far l'amore" at home and enjoyed it. The party scenes seem like a great music video for the song, but while watching the film, I was rather bored, and my resulting overall impression of 50% and 3 weak stars represent some kind of compromise in relation to the work, about which, honestly, I don't know what to think. Paolo Sorrentino can do much better, and when he wants to, he can also convey something. In my case, he didn't succeed with this film... (25/12/2014)

A writer's block, a magical city, beautiful women and a (dis)appetite for a wild social life, or the Fellini of modern times. It's not easy to immediately collect all your thoughts and fully embrace the elaborate metaphorical play in which Sorrentino has wrapped a story about the present-day fate of old age and loneliness, but it's all too easy to like this play and be swept away by it. The charming production design itself, packed with beautiful images, flawlessly composed music and civil dialogues, is a delight to watch, not to mention the perfect actors and the precisely dosed insight that has always belonged to life, and therefore to this film. And it's uncanny how similar the emotions of the film sound compared to the famous 8 1/2, fifty years earlier. People don’t change and Italian filmmakers are proof of that. :) 80% (06/01/2014)

Only Paolo Sorrentino can meditate on life like this. To understand The Great Beauty, one must have matured and have experienced some things in life. It's hard to find the right words here, as one's own experiences are not transferable. After watching the movie for the second time, I perceive everything much more deeply. Perhaps the third viewing will really break me apart... (85%) (27/05/2021)

Crisis as a pose, beauty as the only principle of construction. Sometimes it works wonderfully (the introduction and the conclusion), whilst other times it's empty, ostentatious, unnecessarily eloquent and awkwardly theatrical. Even the biting irony is only about halfway there. Sorrentino is an excellent director, but unlike Fellini's "Roman frescoes", which are internally experienced and in every chord accurate, he realizes the idea of a nostalgic protagonist in crisis much less convincingly, but all the more heinously and loudly. A film that plays at being a classic just like the protagonist plays at being a blessed man of the world. Sorrentino had already made films that are an order of magnitude better, but also less affectionate. (02/07/2013)

Episodes from the life of Roman high society, which in themselves are filmmaking glamor. The Great Beauty is a visual gem, abstract not only in its image, but also in terms of content. It’s not possible to absorb it all in a single viewing, as the sheer number of thoughts and reflections requires watching it again. And even if you still don’t absorb them all, you will remain dazzled by the atmosphere and elegance of the film, touched by the harmony between the camerawork and editing, which is simply incredible. Paolo Sorrentino is from outer space. The disco party at the beginning of The Great Beauty beats the entire Great Gatsby. (05/07/2013)