Everywhere Mastroianni goes, he encounters beautiful and eccentric women who are enchanted by his company. The feeling is invariably mutual, but the relationships are temporary, whether they are with Swedish actress Anita Ekberg, wealthy socialite Anouk Aimée, nightclub dancer Magali Noël, a middle-aged prostitute, or teenaged waitress Valeria Ciangottini.
The one person Mastroianni admires most is mild-mannered author Steiner (Alian Cuny), who is married with two adorable young children. One day, Steiner kills himself and his two kids for no reason. Mastroianni reacts by attending yet another party, where he tries to set up an orgy and humiliates a drunken woman by riding her like a donkey and pasting feathers on her.
How others will see it. Fellini's formless drama promptly won critical praise. Even the Oscars, which usually relegates foreign language films to lesser categories, nominated the film for best director, best screenplay, and best sets. It won for best costume design, whether or not any woman would be caught dead wearing such a dress here in America.
More than a half century later, La Dolce Vita is as beloved as ever. At imdb.com, the user ratings are extremely high, and actually are highest (excluding the under 18 crowd) among women over 45. I am at a loss to explain why people love this movie. The imdb user comments suggest that while the destination is nowhere, the journey is fascinating. Or perhaps, that an array of beautiful women are always nice to look at, whether or not what they are doing is consistent, natural, or rational.
How I felt about it. I have to admit that I admire Mastroianni. Here is a man who never sleeps, smokes cigarettes one after another, and downs enough alcohol to kill a horse, yet has the energy to entertain a different beautiful woman in every scene.
But what does it all mean? Mastroianni already has what every man actually wants, possession of a beautiful woman (Yvonne Furneaux) who wants to smother him with her impetuous sexuality. But why stop at one woman when the world is full of 'em, and each one has a different age, face, and degree of fickleness?
Thus, we see Mastroianni waist deep in a fountain at three in the morning with a Swedish actress he will never sleep with and will not remember his name within a week. He even chases women when he is supposed to be working, such as covering the story of two children who claim to see the Virgin Mary and are patently making fools out of an obliging Italian press. But he chases them like a dog chases a car, because they are there and because he is supposed to, but without any plan of what to do with them once he momentarily has them.
Fellini has nowhere to go with his story but compensates by placing the King of Cool (Mastroianni) in every scene and filling out the cast with a bevy of attractive women. Eye candy is better than nothing, but it is no substitute for an absence of structure.