Amarcord

Multiple Viewings
Federico Fellini
1973

One of the lighter, easier digested films in Fellini's career, this one makes for a good introduction to the director's work. Ostensibly a collection of episodic remembrances from Fellini's childhood during Mussolini's regime, made cohesive by the communal nature of small town life and peppered with the maestro's signature flights of fancy. The best moments tend to come from the sexual hysteria of the male teenage mind: hilarious anti-masturbation lectures from the priest, the horn-dog obsession with ladies butts plopping down on bicycle seats, the fixation on a massive breasted tobacconist, and a puppy love yearning for town beauty Gradisca, clad in red with a frequently wiggling booty. The natural insubordination of the students towards their teachers is a treat as well, and in this respect makes Amarcord the most Truffaut-like of Fellini's films. There's lots of good stuff here, and it's definitely required viewing, but this rewatching made me really appreciate the mastery of some of the director's more complex and challenging pictures. Weirdest moment of the film: when the gargoyle-ugly melon-seed vendor winds up in the harem of a visiting Sheik.