Federico Fellini's love for his adoptive city was unique. It was only natural he would make this film in which his awe and admiration for what became his playground is captured in vivid images which only could come from one of the most important masters of the Italian cinema of all times. The film is both a comedy and a sort of documentary in which we watch the director, himself, performing the role of what he did behind the camera, for our benefit.

The film is autobiographical in many aspects. We watch as the young Federico, an aspiring journalist arrives in Rome from his native Rimini. His new home is in an apartment where he has been recommended to stay by relatives. The place was pure chaos with the many different Roman characters he found there. The heat of the summer brought everyone to the streets where dining was an art. The food in great proportions in spite of a war going on. Fellini is an observer of his new surroundings. The woman street singer that goes through the tables, reminds us a little bit of Gelsomina, an immortal character created by the director, and also of Cabiria, the fun loving prostitute.

Rome, being a the chaotic place it was, is presented at a dizzying speed by the director who has taken his camera outside along a busy highway as fans from Naples arrive to attend a soccer match against the local team. The autostrada is some is a metaphor that emphasizes the confusion and the chaos anyone feels when arriving to Rome. Fellini ends it all in a massive car tie up in the street around the Colosseum. Fellini renders homage to his city in the last sequence as well taking the viewer through a night ride by motorcyclists that passes by all the best known monuments of the city.

We are also taken to a neighborhood music hall that presents vaudeville acts. The atmosphere was typical of the one found in such places where everyone went to have a good time with their friends and neighbors. These places attracted a rough crowd that made a tough place for performers in which to act. Theater in Italy, although not remotely close to the scene Fellini shows, is a place where the real drama is not presented on stage; the real show is given by all the people that go to be seen without shame of behaving in strange ways.

The subway excavation sequence offers an interesting aside in which the present day and the olden times come together when the workers discover a Roman home underground. The magnificence of the images that are discovered reveal the proud past of one of the oldest and most artistic civilizations of all times. Alas, it is only short lived because of the air that penetrates the hidden frescoes found under the rubble make them disappear.

The brothel also played a big part in the sentimental education of the maestro. We have seen prostitutes in all of of Fellini's films in one way, or another. He wants to take us to two different kinds of pleasure houses, one for the common citizen and a high class one that closes up when important celebrities decide to have private fun. Fellini juxtaposes the scenes at the brothels with a gathering of the Catholic Church higher ups that have come to Princess Domitilla's palace for an ornate fashion show for ecclesiastical fashion that is decadent in the excesses presented. Like with other Italian creators, Fellini had an ongoing love-hatred by the institution that has ruled the lives of Italians for centuries.

"Fellini's Roma" was a great creation by Federico Fellini. It is as important as some of the other films because it captured the soul of the city Fellini loved so much. This was possible because of the images cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno, a amazing photographer of many of the director's work. Nino Rota's musical score is also an asset in the film. The cast is enormous to single out anyone, they all contribute to make this film a tribute to Rome, the eternal city.

This film consists of many different mini films within a film and all are tied together because they have something (no matter how tenuous) to do with Rome. Some are rather touching, some are very crude, some are meant to be very offensive but none of them were boring and all were accompanied by the usual cast of Felliniesque extras (ugly people, huge breasted whores and the like).

If I had been in Fellini's shoes back in the early 1970s, I might have been tempted to do what he did with ROMA. Instead of a traditional narrative or plot, he just took disparate images and segments having to do with Rome and tossed it all together into a compote of sorts without a lot tie it all together. What could be easier? While a new or struggling director would have probably been ignored or castigated for such excess and lack of discipline, since it was the great Fellini, then it was the work of an artiste. In other words, since he'd attained great international fame by creating some wonderful films, now he was free to screw around and do anything he wanted and STILL pack theaters and make the critics happy! Talk about a great life! Now as for me, I have a habit of being a nay-sayer--someone who often tries to see things from a different point of view. And while I used to think Fellini was an overrated "genius", in recent years I have come to realize he was a great director as evidenced by LA STRADA and so many other great works. Unfortunately, because I also buck conventional wisdom, I also feel that starting in the 1960s, sometimes the director created some awful films that were adored by snobs but left the common man wondering if either the critics were nuts or they were. Frankly, after seeing SATYRICON, CASSANOVA and ROMA (all films that often carried Fellini's name on the title),I think I know the answer to that! If you like surrealistic and artsy films that make you feel smug in your own sense of self-importance, then by all means watch and enjoy this film. As for me, I just think all these films were really a form of self-parody and Fellini was just having a laugh at the expense of his die-hard fans. As for me, I think I'd rather have a migraine than see this film again--no matter how good some parts of the film were.

FYI--A warning to parents. This film has quite a bit of nudity featuring very unattractive women's breasts. There is also a scene where a little kid pees in the aisle of a theater--something I didn't need to see. Additionally, there is a rather irreverent jab at the Church near the end, so parents should exercise some caution before letting their kids see this--but on the other hand, what kid would WANT to see this?!

Of the five movies so far I have seen of Fellini's, Roma is my least favourite, but that doesn't mean at all that it is a bad film. It's just that I think La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2 and Amarchord are masterpieces and La Strada a near-masterpiece.

Roma while perhaps being the most personal of Fellini's films for me was just very, very good. For my liking, Fellini occasionally shows a lack of intellectual rigour and when he is reminiscing and chatting with the likes of Marcello Mastroianni while mostly companionable and insightful there is the odd occasion where he comes across as a tad overbearing.

However, Fellini more than makes up for it with a very interesting and insightful experimental/documentary-like approach to this film. Mastroianni, Gore Vidal and Anna Magnani are a delight to watch, the film does have a subtle message and told with a lot of heart and Nino Rota's score is atmospheric, nostalgic and lilting. Like all his films, the visuals show a genius at work. The cinematography is spellbinding and The Eternal City is gorgeous. Here Fellini's images are at their best in the 1940s music hall show, the unearthing of the ancient villa and the fashion parade.

All in all, enchanting and interesting if not Fellini's best. 8/10 Bethany Cox