Undescribable Perfection

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

It is not the best Fellini. but it is an useful one. for the fantasies, for references to early films, for Mastroianni, for the use of fears, taboos and grotesque, for the mix of kitsch, fantasies and stereotypes, for the disco music and for the toys and tools of an eerie. it is a not comfortable film. too long, too eccentric, too ambiguous, too strange. but it has a bizarre art of seduction. and, maybe, this is the lead trait defining it. not a satire against feminism and machismo, but a remind of the roots of the crisis for contemporary world. and that did not it a great movie but only an useful one. for the precise verdict. for the meeting with images from nightmares with potential to be bricks of near reality. and for many other reasons. too familiar after 38 de ani from the birth of "La citta delle donne".

Big dream/nightmare vision of a man in late middle age (dapper hot daddy Marcello Mastroianni) about women, gender politics, and death.Midway through 'City of Women' we are introduced to one Dr. Katzone (literally 'Dr. Big-Dick'), representing the phallocratic, pig-man archetype. He drinks, he bullies, he shoots guns, he objectifies women. He lives in a castle comprising an assemblage of phallic symbols, wherein he has built a giant gallery/pantheon, where framed sexy pictures of his hundreds of 'conquests' light up and speak sexy talk when you push their respective buttons.Fellini cast tough-guy actor Ettore Manni as 'Dr. Big-Dick' -- reportedly to type: the character merely a slight exaggeration of the blustery actor. The Legend: the hyper-masculine Manni was in the habit of tucking a pistol in his pants. During the film shoot, Manni accidentally shot his genitals off and bled to death. Absolutely true? I like to believe it.Anyway, this is a helluva film -- hilarious, surreal, honest. Art director Giorgio Giovaninni deserves many medals.

This film is a real feast for the legion of Federico Fellini fans.It has everything: the dream-like Felliniesque atmosphere, the nostalgic soundtrack by Louis Bacalov (Fellini's constant composer and co-creator of his masterpieces, Nino Rota, died in 1979),the scathing satire on the feminism and male chauvinism, and on the society at large,in which Fellini grew more and more disappointed (the best and final example is his last film "The Voice of the Moon").Perhaps, the great director is a little more bitter than ever, a little more sarcastic and nostalgic,but as a piece of art, "The City of Women" is one of the best films he has ever made.Needless to say that all the actors are superb,including the incomparable Marcello Mastroianni, Fellini's alter ego in "Otto e Mezzo". The great Art of Federico Fellini is timeless: even today, in my Cinema Class,my students appreciate it as much as their Professor did thirty years ago.

By the time this movie was made Women's issues were alive in the media of all industrialized nations ... This movie was meant to shock and shock it does. Its not crass ... it is very cerebral and highbrow. The character is lost in a sea of femme weapons. This movie actually depicts well the confusion and men and women in a new age. The movie is full of enticement followed by letdown and weirdness ... as is our daily lives in this new age. Have you ever heard that all a man thinks about is sex ... well this movie takes it to extremes. Its funny, scary, enticing, crazy, dreamy, wild, intellectual, modern. I think one of best of Frederico. He got better with age. The movie characters are all over the edge, too much, too weird ... its all for a point.