The Great Beauty
(142 minutes) Italian
with English Sub-Titles
From the very beginning “La Grande Bellezza,” in English
“The Great Beauty” entices with its audacious scenes of Rome.
Perhaps all of this is a dream. The film may seem as Baroque
as in its sensibilities like Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “One Hundred Years of
Solitude,” we are in the presence of great theatre, the stage is the city,
Rome. If life is a dream, we are easily seduced by Sorrentino’s lush canvas.
From the high vistas of Rome, we travel through the facile
world of la dolce vita, although these darkened corners are less the world of
Fellini; yet showing a wistful but jaded detachment from all, namely a world
drenched in facades.
The main character, Jeb Gambardella, a latter-day Proust
without the cork-lined rooms; appears satiated by his life as the dilettante.
His character although constantly flitting from party to party represents an
older world, where sensory beauty, and art is everything.
Gambardella is surrounded by the opposite side of the coin:
the nouveau riche. The contrast between the writer, his interior motives and
his destiny are uneasily juxtaposed to the new era. The shallow swans, swains
and chimeras of this Rome, an Italy of empty poseurs, indulge their media
fantasies, endless Bellusconi-like parties, reprises a large segment of the
film. The depths of the dark shades are really a beautiful meditation on loss,
life, death, memory, art which encourages a dance, an evocation most
satisfying, because it is a life involved in art. The visionary element of this
film charts the vagaries of modern Rome. Subtly played by all, especially Toni
Servillo as Gambardella; but we are drawn to the furies of the city, both good
and bad. This universe brings both creation, but also death. Fame, as some have
come to regard it, may be the disease of the age, while some find it difficult
to part from its allure. Gambardella seems ambivalent, although he is
intoxicated by the beauty of this truncated world, and the nature of Rome.
Rome resplendent is very fine indeed. In the hands of this
director we share in a very human fable. The body and life of man: his sadness,
his pride and his destiny unfold with the poignancy of the most fervent dreams.
“La Grande Bellezza” is full of life with many dazzling scenes. We might have a
vainglorious tale; the story of a modern Icarus, but my, how brightly he,
Gambardella burns. This is an old-fashioned film, but it is a truly Great one
in the European tradition.
Review by Timothy Sparks
Freelance Writer - Poet - Film Reviewer
Email: tphwsparks@gmail.com
