***La Dolce Vita Redux- Paolo Sorrentino’s La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty)    

 

 

 

DVD Review

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty), starring Toni Sevillo, directed by Paolo Sorrentino , Medusa Films, 2013  

Many of us have seen the great epic explorations of the tattered and worn decadent post-World War Italian high society social scene done by the late director Federico Fellini. Most notably his La Dolce Vita which captured his fine sense of the absurd machinations of the high rollers with plenty of time (and lira) on their hands. That film is a direct descendent of the film under review Paolo Sorrentino’s La Grande Bellezza where the leading character Jep (played by Toni Sevillo), a classic product of current Italian high society, conclusively proves that the rich and their hangers-on have not changes much in the last half century except their habits are become more exotic and expensive.

The plot, well, this kind of film really has no plot, is centered on an exploration of Jep’s, well, boredom with life now that he had reached the age of sixty-five and has seen it all, heard it all, and done it all without making much of a dent in the world. Oh sure Jep (and maybe some others in his crowd) had youthful aspirations (maybe even dabbled a little in leftist politics), had written a book, maybe more but had settled into a life of bourgeois comfort and forgetfulness. While the “plot” may not be much the reason to watch this film, and you should, is the remarkable acting of Toni Sevillo as the faded novelist turned cultural critic bound to shoulder on in the vacuum of high society. That acting and the lush party scenes when high society breaks out are what kept my eyes riveted to the screen. A last fifteen minute or so of the seemingly mandatory attack on the powerful Roman Catholic Church in Italian life could, no, should have been cut at no lost to the great beauty of this cinematic study.