The Road
1954
Directed by Federico Fellini
Man, I really hate Fellini. Thanks to this list, I have actually seen around ten of his films. I keep hoping one will stick with me but I always just end up hating all of them, including this one.
So this weird clown girl is pretty much sold to a strongman at a circus. He is horrible and abusive but she sticks with him, because he has no one else. Gee, I wonder why? Anyway, more shit happens but this is a spoiler free zone.
You can see from the plot summary that this film is beyond pretentious. Besides that fact, the story is just plain stupid. Watching such a weak woman and such a brutal man is not my idea of fun.
Stupid and overrated. And so begins our journey with Fellini.
RATING: -----
Interesting Facts:
Won the first academy award for best foreign language film.
I can only agree with you on this one. The girl gets a million chances to get out of the abusive relationship, but sticks to the idiot. Go figure.
ReplyDeleteI have just watched La Dolce Vita, which is the best so far from Fellini. There at least you are supposed to shout at the characters.
OK, time for swimming against the tide, sorry.
ReplyDeleteI thought this was OK.. perhaps a little better than that.
Why did she stick with the lout? Perhaps the reason many woman are unable to disentangle from abusive relationships, even these days, when there is a lot more help and support available. In the 50's, her chances of survival would have been very low. See it as a film that makes this point perhaps? Well, maybe, I feel that thought is a little dubious, but remember she is not a person with great strength..
I would like to argue that point. The younger clown may be a jackass, but he genuinely liked her. What the nun offered her was essentially her dream come true, no catch at all compared to the life she was living, yet she turned it down. She would have done wonderfully without him. It was he who would have suffered without her as we see in the end. Maybe she sensed that and sacrificed herself for that, but such an idiotic decision just makes me want to kick her even harder.
DeleteLol agreed. Even if it is being realistic, there is nothing more frustrating in a film (or novel) when a character won't help themselves.
ReplyDeleteI might go further than Ray. I thought it was a little better than a little better than OK. I also sense that it's the type of film that I'd enjoy if I watched again. Sometimes I get a bit impatient if the purpose isn't clear to me, which it wasn't always here, but a second viewing not worrying about that would give me focus to enjoy other aspects.
ReplyDeleteNot that I will watch it again now. The List is a hard taskmaster. This is 1954 and I have over half a century of films to get through. No time to waste!
I've chimed in before with my frustration with characters who won't help themselves. I don't feel like that applies here. I shall attempt to understand that myself and put it into words.
A good exhibit to compare and contrast it with would be Gaslight with Ingrid Bergman from ten years earlier. In that, Bergman's character expressed none of the inner conflict, sense of destiny, duty nor sympathy for her tormentor. She didn't feel a loyalty to him based upon a kindness seen earlier nor a desire to uncover his hidden good side or simply to look after him. And we the audience weren't at any point encouraged to see the man's inner turmoil, pride and the deep regret he felt at the end.
In La Strada, the characters feel real and we've all seen people in real life situations that contain elements of their relationship. Characters and relationships were what the film is based upon. Gaslight was a plot-driven film in which everyone plays a one-dimensional on-screen stereotype in order to act out the story, which is the foundation for the tension it generates and the twist at the end. Therefore, in La Strada when someone makes a decision we feel is objectively wrong (stay with the brute) we can shrug and say that people are people and they do strange things. When the same happens in Gaslight, where everyone's actions are supposed to make objectively logical sense, it frustrates. Plus Bergman spent the whole film doing that "Oh, woe is me" thing whereas Masina's behaviour is much richer.
For what it's worth, I thought going with The Fool would have been out of the frying pan, into the fire. Going with the circus would have been the best option because she could have made herself useful, but she didn't have the self-respect to see that. By the time she got to the nuns she was in for a penny, in for a pound.
I think the problem here, Dessie, (or my problem at least) is that Fellini is tormenting the poor girl. It is so obvious manipulation. She can get out, she should get out and she knows that, yet she does not. Why? because the director wants her to suffer. De Sica does the same in Umberto D and Fellini has a similar theme going in other movies. They suffer, not because they have do, or conditions force them to, but to force a reaction from our side. Well, he got a reaction from me, frutration and anger.
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