8½

8½; art-film / satire, Italy / France, 1963; D: Federico Fellini, S: Marcello Mastroianni, Anouk Aimée, Claudia Cardinale, Sandra Milo, Rossella Falk, Barbara Steele, Madeleine Lebeau, Caterina Boratto


Director Guido dreams that he is trapped in a car, then that he is suddenly flying and falling into the sea. He wakes up in the hospital, and is sent for a treatment in a spa. Mario and his girlfriend Gloria, Guido's friends, ask him when he is going to make his next film, but the famous director doesn't currently have any inspiration. Luisa, Guido's wife, comes with the train to visit him, while he is having an affair with Claudia. Because of the pressure, Guido avoids giving any clue to actresses or the producer what the movie will be about, falling into hallucinations, not knowing what to do with the in advance made set for a Sci-Fi film, a space rocket launcher. At an outdoor conference, he finally announces he gives up from filming, but makes up with Luisa and dances with other people on the beach.

There are two opinions about Federico Fellini's career. For some, all of his films are pieces of art. For the other, only his logical, early realistic films were excellent, while those filmed since "8 1/2", made out of surreal-abstract episodes, seem like senseless and void ego trips. Art-film "8 1/2" continues to divide—film critic Arsen Oremovic called it his favorite film; conversely, film critic Zivorad Tomic described it as "a pointless movie, brilliantly directed", adding: "I appreciate directing, but directing of what?" "8 1/2" has a very unusual and clever meta-film setting since it is actually a film about director's block, but it has no real story, it is a thin, very stylish self-analysis of Fellini about himself, where Marcelo Mastroianni's character of director Guido is his alter ego. The main problem is that half of these abstract-fantasy sequences could have been cut, without the movie losing anything. The only flashback that truly says something relevant to the story is the one showing Guido as a kid and other pubescent boys going to a shack and giving a thic prostitute, Saraghina, money so that she can give a sensual dance in front of them, yet they are caught and Guido's mother scorns him for it. It shows the iceberg theory, where numerous little events from Guido's past influence him today and his creative filmmaking process. He is seaching for a woman who looks like Saraghina his entire life, and when he realizes that, he finally makes up with his thin wife, Luisa. It also shows that just like Guido as a kid was not the idealized version his mother wanted him to be, neither is Luisa his idealized version of a wife, but she is kind and honest, and thus he should accept her for who she is. 

After a screen test where an actress talks lines Guido based on his arguments with Luisa, she angrily leaves the screening room. Luisa then gives him this lesson: "Another fiction. Another lie. You put all of us in it, but the way it suits you. But the truth is something else, entirely, and only I know the truth. You're lucky I never had the nerve to make it public the way you do... But what could you have to say to strangers when you can't tell the truth to the one closest to you, the woman at your side?" Other fantasy episodes are more or less unnecessary and superfluous, except for the first one in the opening act. What is the point of the flashback of Guido as a kid taking a bath? Or the one where he imagines his father wanted him to be a priest, when Fellini already has the similar one already mentioned in the Saraghina sequence? They are also not that much fun. One amusing sequence shows Guido in a house that seems like a harem, where a dozen of his ex-women live with him, but the old ones get "banned" to the attic, but it could have also been a deleted scene. "8 1/2" works much less as a movie about the author's block, when it seems Fellini tries to obfuscate the plot to cover up the moments of empty walk, but is better when he tries to show the process of creating, and even directing. In one clever moment, Guido's voice is heard off-screen in the hotel room, as he directs his mistress, covered only with a towel, to go outside in the hallway and then go back in, to pretend she accidentally entered the wrong room, displaying how Guido creates the setting for his own aphrodisiac. One notable sequence is when Claudia talks with the protagonist about the movie: "I don't understand. He meets a girl who can give him new life, and he pushes her away?" - "Because he no longer believes in it." - "Because he doesn't know how to love". In the end, Guido realizes he needs to direct his own life and relationships first, to settle himself, love those imperfct people around him, before he can direct a movie. "8 1/2" walks a fine line between pretentious and ironic (in one scene in the opening, a critic complains to Guido's planned metaphor of a woman at a spring: "Of all your story's overabundant symbols, this is the worst", so Guido throws away this written review), but is too hermetic and overlong due to its 130 minutes of running time, while the ending is weak. A quality, ambitious, though still overrated art-film, with a very artificial story flow.

Grade:+++