2012 Film Challenge #7: La Dolce Vita

Federico Fellini's great films of the 1950s were gritty, realist tales of people at the edges of society—street performers, con artists and prostitutes. Though not unremittingly negative, the films do not shy away from hard facts; throughout there is the struggle for money, the threat of poverty, and fear for the future. The characters have generous and brave aspects, but they have their dark and ugly aspects too, and we understand this and forgive them because it is not an easy world and they are at the bottom of it.

What a shock it must have been in 1960 when the director's next film turned out to be the exact opposite. La Dolce Vita, or "The Sweet Life," tells the tale of Marcello Rubini, a successful, handsome, talented and charming journalist who hobnobs with heiresses and movie stars. He has a fine car, his nights are spent in cafés and nightclubs, and he lives with a beautiful woman who loves him passionately. Wealth, glamour and gaiety are everywhere. 

And yet none of Fellini's movies is more cruel.

Like Nights of Cabiria, La Dolce Vita is episodic; what drives the story forward is not a unifying plot thread but Marcello's character, first our discovery of it and then its change and evolution. We meet Marcello at the height of success, literally flying high in a helicopter over a city where people know his name and admire his work. He longs for more, however; he knows in his heart that what he writes is ephemeral and unimportant, and he feels the pull to create something meaningful. At the same time, he is entranced by the upper-class world that he has gained access to, full of people that swim in beauty and freedom. The draw of the beautiful and free is epitomized by the most famous image from the film, that of the bosomy blonde American actress playing like a child in the Roman fountain. Marcello is entranced by her, sees in her all that life should be—a sweet, joyful, sensuous feast. 

However, there is a darkness creeping in at the edges. In his role of observer Marcello also sees sadness and folly, human frailty and the specter of meaninglessness. It turns out the feast is poisoned, and the more we gobble it down, the sicker we get. Too much freedom is as bad as too little; with nothing to hold us, only the very strong or the very hard survive. The weak evaporate like water. Fellini's Cabiria is knocked to the ground, but in the end she is still able to find joy in the world. We imagine that if only she had money, if only life were easier, she could know true happiness. This fantasy is what makes La Dolce Vita terrifying, because Marcello only rises higher, and yet as a man he is all but destroyed. 

The movie is long, but it has to be, because if it weren't we could laugh it off, we could choose to only remember the images we like and not those we don't. It immerses us in Marcello's life, so much so that we see the truth in it all—we have walked that road with him, every step, all the way to its conclusion. In the end we are as harrowed as Marcello—we're harrowed because we like Marcello—we're harrowed because Marcello could be us. 

La Dolce Vita is a slap in the face, stinging all the harder because at the moment of impact we are not recoiling from ugliness but leaning in for a kiss. 

Netflixxable? Yes to disc, no to streaming.