8½ Review

At first glance, one person may just think this is just another foreign flick. I did. I expected to fall asleep. And I did. But it was because I already woke up early for work and it was a long day to watch in the evening. I only fell asleep for (I think) 15 minutes. But watching the whole film, I recommend watching it more than once to understand the story. It is a great film with great cinematography and a great story.



8½ is directed by Federico Fellini and was released in the U.S. in 1963. I'll only review two things about the movie. One negative and one positive.

First, let's do the positive. The story. It is fantastic. However, you will not get it the first time through. The film goes through flashbacks, reality, fantasies, and the actual film scenes of the movie being filmed in it. Confusing, huh? Yeah. I didn't get it for the first 30 minutes and then it slowly dimmed brighter in my head what was going on. Normally, this would be a negative point for me but Fellini does it in such a genius way that you want to find out and keep peeling the layers of the main character and see who he truly is. The opening sequence is quite odd and I had a confused WTF look as I was watching it. But as it progressed, Guido (the main character) relates to the film student audience as a lot of people want stuff from him and keep nagging at him as a director and a person. Several scenes show this brilliantly and I applaud it.

The negative? It's too long. As so, I fell asleep at some time during it. And so being a complex film and needing to watch it several times is also a negative.

My verdict? Watch it. Again. And again. It's that good.