8½ - Film Review

OUTSTANDING FILM

★★★★★- 5 Stars 

This is my first Federico Fellini film. Shocking, I know. This is quite possibly the most artistic of all the films I have watched thus far. I feel I can relate to Guido (Marcello Mastroianni) in the film. I tend to drift off a lot and try to think of my dreams as reality. That's what makes this film beautiful. It takes dreams and it makes it reality. At the film's start, Guido is an unlikable character. He tends to doze off and away from the people he's talking to just so he can focus on his dreams. In the end, you feel the pain Guido is going through that eventually leads him to cancel the film entirely. The most beautiful shot in the movie, which is going to sound dumb, is Guido wrapped in the towels with the whip. The shot looks so dream-like when it is real.
I'd say avoid this film until you have a better understanding of the art of film and film making. This film pushes away from the natural formula of film more than I've ever seen. If you think you can handle it, the first scene deals with Guido getting out of his car and going to the top to dream of a sequence of him saving a man. It's scenes like that that you aren't prepared for and need to be more educated for.