INTERVISTA Movie Review

Federico Fellini's Intervista

There's no point in briefly criticizing or, God forbid, analyzing Federico Fellini's Intervista, because that's something each of us will do on a very personal level, based on our own feelings about this legendary artist. The maestro's second-from-final film (his Voices of the Moon has yet to receive American release) is designed as a “mockumentary” made by a Japanese TV crew about the life of filmmaker Federico Fellini. In Intervista, the character of Fellini (he plays himself) is supposed to be preparing an adaptation of Kafka, which makes perfect sense amid the strange goings-on. Set at Rome's Cinecittà Studios, where Fellini shot many of his greatest works, the studio's hallways become corridors of memory for both the director and the viewer, as familiar figures like Anita Ekberg and Marcello Mastroianni drop in for brief appearances, watching along with us some indelible, wrenchingly moving film clips from the past—they're snippets from the dreams that Fellini shared not only with his actors, but with the entire world. Intervista isn't much of a movie in the conventional sense, but as a glimpse of a great artist free-associating messily but sincerely through the passions of a lifetime, it's an offer few film lovers will be able to refuse.

NEXT STOP… La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2, Ginger & Fred

1987 108m/C IT Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg, Sergio Rubini, Lara Wendell, Antonio Cantafora, Antonella Ponziani, Maurizio Mein, Paola Liguori, Nadia Ottaviani, Federico Fellini; D: Federico Fellini; W: Federico Fellini, Gianfranco Angelucci; C: Tonino Delli Colli; M: Nicola Piovani. VHS TRI