Film review: The Great Beauty is a humanistic movie with Felliniesque touches
Edmund Lee
The Great Beauty
Starring: Toni Servillo, Carlo Verdone, Sabrina Ferilli
Director: Paolo Sorrentino
Category: IIB (Italian)
Life is so fleeting, you may as well savour every moment. That message seeps from every hypnotic scene of , this year's best foreign language film Oscar winner. Italian director Paolo Sorrentino ( ) takes this notion so literally that he even makes a contemporary flâneur his protagonist.
Jep Gambardella is a jaded writer who lives in the shadow of the success of his only novel, , which was published some four decades ago. Charismatically played by Toni Servillo, who also starred in Sorrentino's (2004) and (2008), the man is a walking reminder of his own unrealised promise.
He is now an elegant wreck, like much of the Roman landscape which surrounds him. But when we first meet this perfectly attired character, he seems to be fine: he's enjoying himself at his 65th birthday party, amidst the throbbing music and writhing bodies. Living just across from the Colosseum, he has been a fixture of the city's high society since his arrival at the age of 26.
In truth, existence rings hollow for the self-proclaimed "king of the high life", and he has grown cynical about his hedonistic lifestyle. He occupies himself with frequent walks around the city, regular dinner parties, and an occasional magazine writing gig.
When news arrives that his first love has passed away, his present becomes muddled with memories and regrets. These fuel the flimsy - if emotionally resonant - episodes of , the title of which refers to the abstract idea of enlightenment Gambardella once looked for.
Sorrentino takes his time to account for his hero's decadence, unrequited affection, and his belated reconciliation and redemption, and the story can get a bit indulgent.
Redemption sometimes comes from unlikely sources: a female friend to whom Gambardella has given a heartless take-down, a 104-year-old living saint who loves his book (Sonia Gessner), or the fading beauty who becomes his latest girlfriend (Sabrina Ferilli).
Often compared to Federico Fellini's odes to Rome, including , and , in spite of the strippers and gourmet-loving cardinals, is a ringing endorsement of the neglected beauty of the Eternal City, and of humanity itself.
Sorrentino sets a prowling camera on the tail of his sad-eyed protagonist, and watches as the haunted man takes in the sights and sounds of Rome.
His life is little more than a glorious mess, and there's a good reason opens with a quote by the French novelist Louis-Ferdinand Céline: "Our journey is entirely imaginary. That is its strength."
The transitory nature of his existence is both a curse and a form of salvation. The same might be said of the lives of every one of us.
opens on March 20
