Okay, I’ll admit right off that I am not a Fellini fanatic.  I haven’t watched his work in the past with a critical eye, nor have I made a study of his habits, tendencies, world-view, etc.  So I watched AMARCORD with essentially fresh eyes, knowing only that it was considered enough of a world classic to be presented on Bluray by Criterion.

I’m not sure I understand why it’s a classic.  But it certainly was enjoyable.  Full of unbridled energy, unconcerned with narrative coherence and clearly dedicated to celebrating naughty fun, AMARCORD is a visual feast.  Allegedly, Fellini said “Amarcord” means “I remember”…but it does not.  Much like the film feels very much like a recollection a childhood gone by…but clearly is NOT realistic.  It is set in an Italian coastal village during the early fascist era (before WWII).  We basically follow one year in the life of this little town.  The camera focuses primarily on one extended family, but also visits with several other characters.  I hesitate to use the word “character” since what most of the citizens of this town are is “caricatures.”  Each actor is a visual extreme.  Whether the irate father who yells far more than is realistic (and has a HUGE mole on his bald head), or the garishly dressed town trollop…no one in the film rings quite true.

The best I can describe it is:  imagine a full grown man remembering the town of his youth, but using the world-view and libido of a teen aged boy who is simply dying to lose his virginity.  AMARCORD is full of fart jokes, crude sex jokes, and has a teen’s fixation on large breasts and general mischief.  Apparently, this village was just a swirling mass of horny people!  This is not to say that Fellini has made an art house AMERICAN PIE…the movie is too cunning to be dismissed so simply.  It is so evocative of a “simpler” time…when bonfires were held in the village square to celebrate the arrival of spring, when the whole town puts to sea in rowboats with the hope of spotting a giant cruise ship coming by, when the church ran the moral show and when fascism was still mostly harmless pomp & circumstance.  We feel the pride of the people in their town and in their country (still less than 100 years old at the time). 

As we follow the main characters around, we get to know them at small family gatherings, at major occasions, at weddings, at funerals, at school & work.  The entire movie is a string of incidents, only held together because we’re seeing the same people over and over.  It’s like we’ve been invited as guests for the year and our casual wanderings through the village sometimes take us to momentous happenings and other times to trivial scenes.  And occasionally, a “professorial” character will ride on his bike into our view and speak directly to us…just as though we were tourists who needed a little perspective.

AMARCORD simply does a fabulous job of capturing a time and place, as well as the character of that time & place.  It rambles often, but never runs out of steam.  It has great forward momentum all the time, and you never know what’s going to happen next because it’s a series of sketches.  Visually, it’s quite stunning (and the BluRay is awesome) and it features some great music.  The performances are quite unrealistic, but they are all very consistent with the tone Fellini is clearly aiming for.  The movie feels utterly loose and random…yet it is clearly under the director’s complete control. 

To me, the “classic” label is a bit puzzling.  It’s a well-made film, but seems like such a trifle too.  I don’t really glean a “greater meaning “ from it, nor do I find it to make some universal statement.  It’s too garish and specific for that.  I give the film very high marks for achieving its own peculiar aims so well…but can’t quite put it into the pantheon of 5-star films either.

The Criterion edition is stellar (although the commentary and included essay don’t really enlighten as to the meaning of the film…they focus more on Fellini, and how his life compares to the life on the film, and how the film fits his overall body of work).  The video is superb and the sound is excellent.  Subtitles are a little better than usual (sometimes Criterion has shockingly bad subtitles.)

Recommended: Yes