8½ (1963)
I knew what I was going into, and honestly didn’t actually expect to really like this, despite loving La Dolce Vita, but just from this films reputation, it was clear it was going to be abstract meta symbolic on the struggling artist of Fellini himself. It is all that, but I think I did manage to get something out of this, while mostly not caring much about all that. Marcello Mastroianni basically made this worth watching for me. I find his more or less indifferent attitude compelling in an odd way. To me he was not the struggling artist failing to find inspiration, more like one who has become indifferent from not having the same ambitions as what people expect of him. Combined that with that everyone around him more seem to care about getting a role so they can become famous, that the art itself, kills the artist in him. And the fact that the movie also mocks itself and its own pretentiousness helped a ton, though I was also a tad bored and not captivated by the visuals and mood in nearly the same way I was with La Dolce Vita. I really want to watch that again.
Rating: 3