Fellini's whimsical and tender semi-autobiographical film is one of his best works.
Amarcord (1974)
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Reviews Counted:36
Fresh:35
Rotten:1
Average Rating:8.5/10
Runtime: 2 hrs 7 mins
Genre: Foreign Films
Synopsis: Federico Fellini's AMARCORD, an acclaimed semiautobiographical episodic drama, examines life in a small Adriatic village just before Mussolini's reign in the 1930s. As the weather changes and... Federico Fellini's AMARCORD, an acclaimed semiautobiographical episodic drama, examines life in a small Adriatic village just before Mussolini's reign in the 1930s. As the weather changes and spring arrives, the village holds a festival in which it burns a symbolic bonfire and celebrates new life. This gathering in the central square is the first of many others throughout the film. Each time the community assembles, its colorful members show themselves in full force, boasting their bizarre, disjointed personalities--and pure mischief is the result. Several of the village ladies wear their eyebrows penciled on in high, provocative arches, a style that seethes sex and drama, coaxing the camera to follow them. The film takes on a circusy, chaotic tone, making it difficult to see a clear plot structure; AMARCORD instead breaks up into several memorably surreal sequences, a few of which follow a young man named Titta (Bruno Zanin) who wanders in and out of the animated provincial landscape, meeting assorted crazy characters and obsessing over sex. The beautiful clashes with the grotesque and politics and family matters blend together while sex is offset by violence in the inimitable style of Italy's late master of cinema, whose tour de force won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. [More]
Starring: Pupella Maggio, Magali Noel, Bruno Zanin, Josianne Tanzilli
Starring: Pupella Maggio, Magali Noel, Bruno Zanin, Josianne Tanzilli
Director: Federico Fellini
Director: Federico Fellini
Screenwriter: Federico Fellini, Tonino Guerra
Composer: Nino Rota
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Reviews for Amarcord
In his own unique style, Federico Fellini has created a beautiful work of art that is as amusing as it is inspiring.
The bawdily amusing Amarcord dispenses with a traditional plot in favour of a series of communal set-pieces.
A memorable last chapter to Fellini's nostalgic screen reminiscences that began in 1953 with I Vitelloni.
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.
Uneven, loosely structured, and at times pretty vulgar as well as sentimental, but with some touching and lovely episodes.
A totally accessible film. It deals directly, hilariously, and sometimes poignantly with the good people of this small town.
A vulgar, crassly funny, tender, always affectionate nostalgia trip, Fellini style.
What's so surprising about this film is just how loose and effortlessly enjoyable it is, despite all its ideas and images. It's one of the director's very best.
Amarcord, easily one of Fellini's masterpieces, is at once a personal memory film and a more detached social scrutinization of Italian society, specifically the political isolation and cultural provincialism that helped Fascism rise to power.
This veers from the heartfelt to the satirical, the scathing to the loving, the funny to the melancholy -- in short, it's everything that great cinema should be.
It's the more fanciful and lighthearted first half of the film (obviously a big inspiration for some of Woody Allen's work) that works the best.
Amarcord will make you howl with laughter and then choke back a tear. And all the while you’ll be building your own memories of this landmark movie.
Amarcord is Fellini's scrapbook of memories culled from his own life and it is completely engaging and delightful.
He [Director Fellini] leaves us with the hope that the human comedy just may be able to survive everything.
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.
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