Amarcord

Federico Fellini's Amarcord didn't feel very Felliniesque to me. Well, I guess I'm not even sure what that means. Amarcord has all of the grotesquerie (am I allowed to say that? am I misinterpreting Fellini?) of the other Fellini films I've seen. But it's also not a very critical film. Instead, Amarcord is a nostalgic look back on what I presume is the director's childhood.

In case you were wondering, Fellini is a tits man. Amarcord is almost exclusively about tits. Fellini is also about ass, so there's a break or two for ass shots.

I liked it enough, but it's not La Dolce Vita, and as I said, it doesn't feel like an exploration of anything in particular except the filmmaker's own childhood memories. This, for some reason, felt less universal than 8½, though I have no explanation for this. What I will say is, the nostalgic childhood films of Lasse Hallström and (especially) Giuseppe Tornatore resonate more with me than Amarcord. I know Nuovo Cinema Paradiso and Malèna are more sentimental films than Amarcord, but I thought they were more interesting.