Federico Fellini's warmly nostalgic memory piece examines daily life in the Italian village of Rimini during the reign of Mussolini, and won the 1974 Academy Award as Best Foreign Film. The film's greatest asset is its ability to be sweet without being cloying, due in great part to Danilo Donati's surrealistic art direction and to the frequently bawdy injections of sex and politics by screenwriters Fellini and Tonino Guerra. Fellini clearly has deep affection for the people of this seaside
village, warts and all, and communicates it through episodic visual anecdotes which are seen as if through the mists of a favorite dream, playfully scored by Nino Rota and lovingly photographed by Giuseppe Rotunno. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi
Continues to resemble something a lewd, grouchy, fitfully indecent silent-movie director might have made for his first time using color and sound. That, at least, would explain the shouting.
Federico Fellini's films beg to be seen on a movie screen. Their panoramic, overstuffed frames and larger-than-life characters overflow the boundaries of home theater; their exuberant, generous humor is best enjoyed in a packed auditorium.
Seen today, Amarcord is something of a disappointment, clever and moving in places, but also sprawling, undisciplined, clumsy in patches, and decidedly overlong.
Bloated, overblown and essentially empty, Fellini's last hit movie skims over the surface of the lives it depicts, substituting manufactured sentiment for genuine feeling or understanding.
I admit I've never been a huge Fellini fan, but I found Amarcord to be quite engaging. If anything, it's a portrait of humanity at its most interesting. The movie is funny, strange and surreal, but all at the same time being grounded in the reality of the story. The only minor problem that I had with it is its
leisurely pace during portions of the film when you just want to move on to the next adventure. I may be alone in that, but I felt it watching it. Otherwise, the film is a wonderful look at growing up in Italy through the eyes of Frederico Fellini.
November 13, 2011
Tim Salmons
Super Reviewer
An unorthodox semi-autobiography of director Federico Fellini, 1930's Italy, Amarcord is a vivid and ill-tempered mock of the personal youth of the director-author enriched by adolescent desires and social-political subtexts. Bellissima!
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