La Strada

The centre of the narrative is not Fellini's pictorial symbolism, but Giulietta Masina, an actress whose shy look full of moral innocence is worth a thousand words, and Anthony Quinn, a charismatic thunderbolt whose eccentric performance brings the viewer exactly to the emotions the situation demands. They make such an unforgettable couple, and their mutual differences become such a strong and narratively unifying bond, that master Fellini could just dryly react behind the camera this time and the tragic ending would still hit us in the back of the head with an unprecedented emotional load. The story this time is very basic and some of the philosophical motifs just stretch it unnecessarily, but in Fellini's rich filmography, full of challenging works of thought, The Road certainly doesn't get lost even after all these years, quite the opposite... 80% (07/10/2015)

She only wanted to dance, have fun, love and be loved. And plant some tomatoes. Was that really too much to ask for? A clown with bitter tears trickling down his face – a dreamer who woke up to reality. Gelsomina. Giulietta Masina. A mere look into her big “manga” eyes is worth a thousand words. Thousands of words whose weight the boorish barbarian Zampano is too late to understand.  Barrelling down the road, ever farther away from lasting certainties, is the aggressively red thread of a story that, in hindsight, is probably not nostalgic only for Fellini, who ran away to join the circus in his youth. It’s no wonder that he sees post-war Italy in more favourable colours than the neorealists, among whom he once belonged and who condemned him for such idealisation. Despite the “bigger-than-life” tragic nature of Masina’s and Quinn’s characters and despite the knowledge that viewers of all ages and social classes must have been and still are touched by La Strada, I just watched it without much interest and without a single tear of emotion as it passed by. How slowly it passes by. 70% (29/06/2011)

There's probably not much doubt that it's a good film, just as there are excellent performances by the actors. However, I can't help feeling that it's not something that would completely blow me away to the point of being floored. It's an excellent example of how Fellini knew how to tell stories and also how he could look at people in a way that most of us wouldn’t like. (11/12/2014)