"La Dolce Vita"

I know it's kind of weird that I traipse about the internet using the moniker "Fellini 8.5" and Mr. Fellini's likeness as my avatar, but the Fellini representation in my video collection is rather meager.

Fellini's "8 1/2" is my favorite film, as I mentioned very early on as one of the first posts on this site. Next would be every Kurosawa film tied for 2nd.

I'm not sure where to rank "La Dolce Vita" yet.

It's one of the great classics of foreign cinema, of course. I had seen it once a long time ago, probably on cable TV. I watched the newly remastered DVD last night, and it was excellent all around.

But it was so very long! It clocks in around 3 hours. And you feel it. Seeing as I've got the last "Lord of the Rings" extended edition on it's way, and that I'll sit for 3 times that for a round of "Noir", you'd think it wouldn't have bothered me so much.

I may have just been feeling a little impatient. There are some outstanding moments in this film where I really connected with Mastroianni's character, and where the situation he was in readily paralleled the crossroads that I'm encountering.

(Of course, I wish I had his "babe-magnet" issues...)

But for every scene that drew me in, there was another scene that pretty much lost me; not so much that it was over my head or totally incomprehensible, but that my mind wandered off to other things and it didn't hold my attention anymore. And by the end, the ebb and flow (and late hour) kind of wore me out.

That all said, I'm obviously going to rewatch this, and probably rewatch it many more times. There's a lot of layers to uncover and explore, and I may just find the right one that will carry me through all 3 hours intact.