Wednesday, March 05, 2014

The Great Beauty/La Grande Bellezza

Wow. When I get it wrong, I really get it wrong. This movie is a masterpiece:

Toni Servillo plays Jep in "The Great Beauty" by Paolo Sorrentino



“Never have cynicism and disillusion seemed more intoxicating than in The Great Beauty, which is such an overwhelming visual and auditory experience that its elements of cautionary moral fable threaten to get lost amid the gorgeousness. Not that I’m complaining. Although he remains almost unknown in the States, Sorrentino is one of Europe’s most important filmmakers, and consistently seeks to push the traditions of classic art cinema toward a framing, a pace and a sensibility that can capture 21st-century viewers. Drawing at once on music video, reality TV, art history, Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past and Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, The Great Beauty is an ironic and passionate near-masterwork, like a nine-course dessert that makes you entirely forget the meal.” Andrew O’Hehir, Salon. 




“To travel is very useful, it makes the imagination work, the rest is just delusion and pain. Our journey is entirely imaginary, which is its strength.” -- From "Journey to the end of the Night" by Celine.

1 comment:

AQ: said...

co-sign! it left me sitting on a washington square park bench in the SNOW, thinking about it BLISSFULLY