Why Isn't This On Blu-ray Yet?As scandalous to audience’s expectations of film art in its day as it was critical of the social climate that spawned laconic decay in post war Italy, Federico Fellini’s trend-setting La Dolce Vita (1960) is a conflict between the sacred and the profane, and is today regarded as one of the most important films in international cinema.
A dark and sickening little adventure, immeasurably aided by its jet-setting scope and sumptuousness, the film both deifies and criticizes the changing morality. It was also the very first film to label that rabid group of flashbulb hungry philosophers of the scandal sheet as ‘the paparazzi’.
Into this mix of cheap woman and expensive champagne comes Marcello Rubini (Marcello Mastroianni), a playboy publicist under whose deadpan ultra cool veneer lurks the soured pit of a bitter and transient lost child, errantly floating from one seemingly dysfunctional romantic vignette to the next, yet only able to modestly impact the lives of the women that seemingly dictate his own hollow desires.
The film follows Marcello from his sexual liaison with the mentally bored Maddalena (Anouk Aimee), whom he spends the night with in a prostitute’s bedroom, to his non-descript relationship with international celebrity, Sylvia (the buxom Anita Ekberg). Sylvia’s justly famous dance at a posh outdoor nightclub to the lascivious ogling of libidinous male admirers, and her subsequent solitary swim in the Trevi Fountain attest to the decadent of a self-abusing culture that is on the verge of total eclipse.
Like all of Fellini's characters, these are not stable people, but fractured individuals who are in very real danger of being eaten away by the world they inhabit. The self-destructive quality of all concerned is captivating and terrifying at the same time. This fascinating chronicle eventually degenerates to a house party where alcohol and sex culminate in suicide; an inevitable abortion of all that is unholy and unclean within this world of lost souls.
Heavily criticized by the Catholic diocese for its unflattering portrait of Rome and its social aristocracy, La Dolce Vita is today, perhaps more than ever, a subversive ‘through the looking glass’ stylish bit of bedlam. It attests to the slow and inevitable decline of all great civilizations into that inescapeable mire of crass and wanton commercialism.
WHY ISN'T THIS ON BLU-RAY YET?!?
Koch Lober’s DVD is a visual feast, exhibiting reference quality mastering. A superbly rendered gray scale, virtually free of age related and digital artifacts, the transfer also exhibits an astounding level of fine detail even down to the most minute background detail. The audio is a 5.1 remastering effort that is impressive in its sonic resonance. Extras include interviews with Mastroianni and Ekberg (who has not aged well at all), as well as a snippet from a retrospective on Fellini’s formidable body of work. Highly recommended!
FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)
5
VIDEO/AUDIO
5
EXTRAS
3.5
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