The importance of this film is undeniable. It stands as a transitional point from neorealism (which catalogued the poverty of postwar Italy) to a glitzy carnival of avarice (which Fellini set as the new standard of Italian cinema for moving beyond the country's fascist past). Where Neorealist films were shot in the streets, LA DOLCE VITA turned to florid imagery and expensive sets to mirror the shallow materialistic lifestyle of the times. Fellini is doing for Italy what Fassbinder did for Germany. They're both targeting the failure and moral decay of postwar reconstruction, and documenting the spiritual drift that led many people to live empty, insulated, decadent lives. 

Unlike Fassbinder, Fellini uses a surrealistic (not humanistic) narrative structure to indict celebrity culture and society's obsession with tabloids. He tells this story through a series of disconnected vignettes, all which aimlessly float from one encounter to the next, exhausting and wandering in nature. This is not a film you enjoy. It's one you ruminate on to better understand how a country had emerged from the jaws of fascism only to settle into the jowls of hedonism. LA DOLCE VITA's world is shamelessly narcissistic and depraved, a war-torn landscape filled with sleazy movie stars, corrupt politicians, unfulfilled journalists, and swarming paparazzi, all who are quilted together by drugs and orgies through empty and forgotten spaces. The palatable sense of unease, boredom, and alienation is felt in every frame. Watching nearly 3 hours of this is enough to make you slit your wrists. 

And I almost did. 

I respect this film for its history and ideas, and even its dreamy narrative structure, but man does it roam, tax, and glacially dull you. Its power and ability to provoke lies precisely in the era from which it surfaced, but to me that just means it's much more fascinating to talk about than watch. The story Fellini wants to tell is not only important, it's compelling, but the way he tells it is so elliptically dry and repetitive. Which makes LA DOLCE VITA a really singular historical document but really poor narrative. There's definitely some potent imagery throughout (especially the beginning and ending Christ/monster iconography), but the imagery ultimately can't bear under the weight of Fellini's tedious storytelling. 

I'm no stranger to surrealism either. Lynch, Buñuel, and Jodorowsky have fascinated me for years, each creating intoxicating, weird-as-hell environments that draw out some of the most powerful emotions I've cinematically experienced. Fellini's brand of surrealism here doesn't make the cut. And so I have my suspicions about LA DOLCE VITA. Take away its novelty, its first of a kind to grind against the neorealist grain; take away its excessive praise and Criterion endowment, and I wonder: What would cinephiles see in this film?

Fellini Ranked