Fellini's Roma

Rome exerted a powerful influence over Fellini throughout his life but rarely did he express his love for it more clearly than here. Mixing documentary-style reportage, self-contained dramatic set-pieces and strange, impressionistic sequences, Roma explores the director's youth, the process of filmmaking and the mysterious allure of The Eternal City itself.

Essentially a series of loosely-connected vignettes, the first section of the film sees the young Fellini (Gonzales) arriving in Rome in the 1920s. Thereafter the focus moves to a wartime variety show at the Barafonda Theatre. We visit a brothel, witness Fellini fall in love with a prostitute and listen to the American writer Gore Vidal's bleak assessment of the city's future. Binding these threads together is a team of documentary filmmakers shooting in 1972, when traffic chokes the ancient streets and hippies gather to get stoned on the steps of the Basilica.

As with much of Fellini's work it's a freeform approach that values images for their own sake. Yet amid the purposefully imprecise sequences are some startling moments. The best of these sees the film crew uncovering a set of 2000-year-old frescos in the airless catacombs beneath the city. Elsewhere is an extraordinary, fantastical fashion show in which solemn clergy model the latest Catholic vestments: roller skates, shades, designer satin and cloaks inlayed with neon.

After so much exuberance it moves towards a strange and melancholy conclusion in which Fellini attempts to interview legendary Italian actress Anna Magnani. (She appears only fleetingly and died shortly afterwards.) Finally the city is circled with bikers, menacing ghosts from the future. But throughout Fellini is acutely aware of the contradictions that make up his beloved Rome and though, in the strictest sense, the film goes nowhere, somehow it's a fabulous journey.