8½ 4K 1963 Ultra HD 2160p

Story Movie

The exhausted director plunges into a whirlpool of memories and fantasies, where it is impossible to distinguish fiction from reality.

Review 4K Movie

There is a very rare category of films that create a completely unique atmosphere around them. There is a spirit of mystery and intimacy around '8½', as Fellini opens the curtain separating the viewer and the director, letting everyone into the mysterious world of the artist.

So, the main character, Guido Anselmi, aka Federico Fellini's alter ego, is a talented director, a ladies' man and just a handsome man in the prime of life. But above all he is an artist who is trying to create. However, this does not interest his producer, sponsor, etc.. - They are just making money, and art as such is just a cash cow that needs to be put on the conveyor belt. Was your last movie a success? - Well, what are you waiting for?! Make the next one. And no one cares that Guido has a creative and spiritual crisis, that he has no incentive, no inspiration, nothing. But then he gets an idea - and again everything is wrong: it is too incomprehensible, too strange for the crowd, it will not understand. Guido in his aspirations to make a decent film is lonely, except for him it is almost no one needs it (it is no coincidence that the theme of the thesis of one of his muses, Gloria, sounds like 'The Loneliness of the modern man in the theater'). And here the question arises: is it really necessary to bring art to the masses if they don't need it? Maybe it is the other way around, and it is the masses who should 'carry' art, seeking to feel and understand it, rather than demanding its endless adjustment to their narrow consciousness?

Everything has an end - and Guido's end is coming. As a director, he loves himself in the art, not the art in himself. He thinks he can handle the ambitious task of making a film about love, but realizes in time that he does not have the strength. Guido finds himself unable to make a movie about something he himself has never been able to do - love. He has nothing left to say to the viewer. But no one realizes this: sets are being built, actors are trying out for roles. And no one is not confused that the beginning of filming is suspiciously delayed: someone in mind was money, someone's fame, but no one thinks about the movie itself. And once again Guido is left alone.

Not even his muses save him, of which there are many. A lot of women pass through his life, some linger in it, others do not. Guido belongs to the type of men who draw inspiration from women and only in women, so he can not be called a banal womanizer. His wife and mistresses he does not consider as objects of feelings - in each of them he finds something of himself and thus recognizes himself, but not them. He only becomes attached to the women and does not give them anything like what they give him in return. The only thing Guido can do for them is to immortalize them in his painting, but this is where he runs into the problem of misunderstanding and completely different views of art with others. A vicious circle.

Fellini amazingly managed to tie so many storylines into one tangle (Guido the audience, Guido the colleagues, Guido the women, Guido the art) that is a real pleasure to unravel. You can savor every frame, every appearance of the magnificent Marcello Mastroiani, every note of the clowns' march by Nino Rota, who, by the way, played at the funeral of Federico Fellini himself. It was certainly a special movie for him - he showed his creative process, his fears and concerns, his desire to make movies that would later become true masterpieces of cinematic art.

Guido Anselmi did not manage to make his main movie in his life. Perhaps in one of Fellini's unmade films we would have seen what Guido's torment led to, but the maestro left the viewer the opportunity to predict the fate of his hapless alter ego. The master only slightly opened the door to the world of cinema for the average viewer, but it is up to him to open it fully.