La Dolce Vita (DVD)

La Dolce Vita (The Sweet Life) is a classic 1961 Italian film directed by Federico Fellini. The central character in La Dolce Vita is Marcello Rubini (Marcello Mastrioanni), a young gossip columnist and jaded Don Juan who earns a living sniffing for stories and scandal along Rome's infamous Via Veneto in the fifties. Marcello has become completely absorbed in this twilight world of gossip, parties, faded stars, hedonism and casual relationships to the point where, despite his growing distaste for this lifestyle, he cannot escape. The film charts seven days and nights in the life of the alienated Marcello as he searches for some sort of meaning to his shallow and ...  Read the complete review

La Dolce Vita has booked itself a permanent spot on most critics' top ten film list, and trails a big reputation behind it as the art film buff's entertainment of choice. This oversize image is in keeping with what is an enormous film. Marcello Mastroianni plays Marcello Rubini, a Rome-based trash newspaper journalist who pursues stories across town accompanied by a posse of long-lens photographers. The boundaries between his work and social life are non-existent, and he floats across the surface of Roman society, flirting with beautiful women, mixing with the money, and allowing himself to be swept along with the deranged whirl that surrounds him. At first ...  Read the complete review

'La Dolce Vita' seems to be one of those films more talked about than watched, more remembered for clips (such as Ekberg in the Trevi Fountain) than of plot. It is thought to be Fellini's masterpiece, and it carries, unsurprisingly, the features beloved of him, and is a testiment to a decadent Roman high society, where shallow souls throw money at their every problem and suicide is the only way out. It is hard to elicit a story, but the film pans out through the eyes of Marcello, a gossip columnist (played exquisitely by Marcello Mastriaonni). Marcello is a fairly unsympathetic character, but he allows us an insight into a world that is ...  Read the complete review