How Fellini’s 8½ changed the life of Hong Kong artist Wong Wai-yin
Italian auteur’s magnum opus helped the young artist overcome a sense of isolation and failure and find her artistic feet
Italian cinematic auteur Federico Fellini’s magnum opus, 8½ (1963), is a semi-autobiographical tale about an emotionally immature, creatively blocked film director struggling to balance his complicated personal life and to say something meaningful in a science-fiction film he’s trying to make.
Hong Kong contemporary artist Wong Wai-yin explains how the film changed her life.
I was 17 years old and on summer holiday after my high-school exams. I felt I was going to be a failure. And I felt lonely being around my clever friends from an English Christian girls’ school. I spent all day watching movies in Broadway Cinematheque and [the now closed Wan Chai cinema] Cine-Art House. I just went to see whatever was showing.
I enjoyed reading about autobiographical movies and studying films that broke the fourth wall [wherein characters break with dramatic convention by addressing the audience directly]. I was obsessed with the idea of hyperreality and also the New Age saying that life is just a soul playing a video game or a role in a film.
I had no idea how to communicate this thought to others and it wasn’t appropriate to discuss it at school, so I felt like I had found something when I first saw 8½ – I had discovered someone who thought the way I did.
I expected the film to be great, and it was. It made me realise that art could be a direction for me. And when I look back now, I see my own works are highly autobiographical.