Another UK DVD release for Fellini’s most celebrated film, and this edition – though an improvement over its much-maligned predecessor comes with an above-average number of subtitling stumbles and less-than-perfect picture definition.
So what makes it worth forking out for Fellini again?
For better or worse, 8 1/2 is simply a film that cannot be ignored no matter how much I or anyone else might want it to… disappear. It has come surprisingly close to topping the infamous Sight & Sound poll for Greatest Film of All Time on several occasions, and is frequently cited by the likes of Woody Allen, Terry Gilliam and Martin Scorcese as a personal favourite.
But how accessible is the film to non-directors? A self-referential tale of a successful filmmaker (Marcello Mastroianni) with writer’s block, it is necessarily whimsical and impulsive. By turns intoxicating and repellent, grand and scrappy, punctuated by aggressively extraordinary images; for me 8 1/2 will always be a film to admire rather than to love.
Overall Verdict: A cacophonous, dreamy, dislikeable film of enormous historical importance.
Special Features:
“Lost Sequence – Fellini on Fellini” – interview
Interview with Lina Wertmuller (Assistant director)
Trailers
Reviewer: Tom René