Sorrentino and Fellini

With the temperature over 35 degrees C. every day for weeks, we were searching for a little solace. Other than spending a long time in the supermarket, the movie theatre was the option.

'Youth', starring Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel, was the mid afternoon showing so we settled in for a cool couple of hours. What a pleasant surprise to see one of our favourite directors named. Paolo Sorrentino, director and screen play writer, has made a movie with gorgeous filming and gentle relationships.

Caine, a retired composer and conductor and Kietel, a last ditch screen play writer are spending time at a Swiss spa. There they reminisce and come to see that some good things can come in the last years of one's life.

This meditation on art and aging was met with very mixed reviews at Cannes - from boo to bravo! We really enjoyed it as the acting was very good and the Sorrentino effect pleases us.

It was a pleasant coincidence because only the week before we had watched 'La Dolce Vita', the quintessential 1960 Italian movie best known for Anita Ekberg's romp in the Trevi Fountain. Starring Marcello Mastroianni and directed by Federico Fellini, this story of the hedonistic life in Rome was also met with mixed reactions when it was released.

The term 'paparazzi' (journalists) and also 'la dolce vita' (the good life) sprung to world recognition from this movie. Watching this movie we could see what we had not appreciated before, the solid link between Fellini's movie and our very most favourite movie 'La Grande Bellezza' - The Great Beauty.

Paolo Sorrentino won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 2013 for 'La Grande Bellezza', a movie we own and have watched several times. And that is what you must do!  Described as a 'compelling tragicomedy of Italy's leisure classes'.... ' a sensual overload of richness, strangeness and sadness'.

Jed, the hero is played by Toni Servillo with great charm and conviction. As a writer he had one successful novel in his 20's and now at age 65 he has not repeated that success. He knows all the right people so his life is one giant party but does that lead to happiness?

This movie is enthralling, beautifully filmed and portrays Rome in all its magnificence. It may be seen as a modern take on 'La Dolce Vita' but it is more, and for me it is the most wondrous movie I have seen. I will watch it many more times, I am sure.