Federico Fellini
8 ½

"I don't want to tell another lying story". Is it all over? Yes. There is no part for anyone. The film will not be made. Let the dancing sailors, pedantic critics, and greasy producers rest easy, it's all over. Remember the gunshot? Hypothetically, Eight and a Half could end here. No celebration, just a barren, deserted beach full of debris, like the director's soul. It’s known that in novels, as often in films, when the story is over, the characters have long gone. They flee at an indeterminate point in the narrative and leave you there with a thousand questions.

Wicked Federico Fellini when in 1963 he confronted us with the greatest of all: why do we exist? Evidently, the initial question (why make the film?) is just a pretext to address bigger things, much bigger than perhaps cinema's capabilities can narrate. Guido Anselmi (alter ego of the actual author), 43 years old, a successful director, knows this, and this is where his troubles begin. What does Eight and a Half seek if not the answer to all this? The point, however, is that there is no answer. The boundaries between art, dream, and reality blur, the barrier between actors and spectators dissolves, and Federico Fellini does exactly what art should always do: not tell, not hide, but show. The director is in search of himself and for this, he must go through all the stages of his existence in his memory, like in a psychoanalytic session. But past and present overlap, truth and fiction mix, and it is not easy to not lie to oneself when one has lived a whole life on a mountain of lies. So where to find peace? In women? But Carla is nothing more than a carnal outlet, Luisa as a wife implies respect for certain rules... and then there is Claudia (Claudia Cardinale), a splendid ideal entity ("young and ancient, a child yet already a woman"), but she is as elusive as a breath of wind and perhaps is only a product of the director's imagination. Yet it seems to be her, in her ethereal inconsistency, who provides Guido with the simple and clear key to everything, in what is one of the most beautiful sequences of the film. But will it really end there? Of course not. Guido seeks answers in the world of cinema, the same that has consecrated him, but if on one side there is the ignorance of journalists and industry insiders who constantly want to know things that even Guido doesn't know or doesn't want to say, on the other side there is the pedantry of intellectuals, totally addicted to their role and blind beyond their cognitive patterns. Although it must be acknowledged that some words spoken by the Frenchman Carini would be sacred and worthy of being remembered for long. So what remains? Religion, family? No, they are more the shadows they cast on the past than the lights that illuminate the present. The only way out is inside oneself and comes like a flash, dissolving instantly, just like the awareness of having fully understood the scope of this work. Yes, because if I were asked what Eight and a Half is about, honestly, I wouldn't know what to answer. It is a film about cinema, it is a film about love, it is a film about solitude... perhaps it's just a film about Man. And whatever its meaning, you can be sure, you will never find it. But isn't this what we want?

It was certainly what Fellini wanted: "I make a film the same way I live a dream. Which is fascinating as long as it remains mysterious and allusive, but risks becoming insipid when explained". Perhaps the only true meaning of Eight and a Half is that of giving meaning to all things. Perhaps the only real thing to do is to sit and admire.

Asa-NIsi-MAsa.