La Primavera di Fellini

The institutionalized uncle’s silhouette is erect with unrest. It is perched a top a tree that towers over the sunset. He yells, “Voglio una donna/ I want a woman!” His anxiety scrapes against his words. “VOGLIO UNA DONNA!” The villa’s farm suddenly loses its calmness. But with the addition of a quirky realism, the setting has developed a brilliance.

In Fellini’s 1974 film Amarcord, the renowned Italian filmmaker documents the full-flavored relationships between residents in the coastal town of Remini. In particular, he hones in on a pubescent boy’s experimentations with sexuality set against the arousing beginning of Mussolini’s reign. In the first sequence of Remini’s villa, Fellini shoots dialogues between noteworthy characters. A youth banters with the blind accordian player. The elegant middle-aged men inquire after the town prostitute’s most recent pay off. The beggar is tricked into staying a top the trash used for the bonfire. Remini’s most beautiful resident saunters until her body jerks to the sudden noise of firecrackers. The focal boy’s father reprimands him for donating a house chair to the bonfire. The comedic characters and their hilariously crude dialogue upstage each lives' bleakness. For example, one the characters who breaks the third wall with the audience is a mustached, blue-eyed lawyer. His romantic lectures on Remini’s history and praises of Dante, Pascoli, and D’Annunnzio are interrupted pranksters’ farts. He dips his forehead in disappointment then turns back to the viewer, props his chin and starts remarking on the Roman and Celtic blood of Remini’s people. This lawyer embodies Amarcord’s theme of positive wackiness overshadowing conflict. 

As a result of the emphasis on the quirky relationships of the people, the viewer reflects on the humor of the story rather than the rise of fascism and the financial deficiencies of Amarcord’s setting and residents. From the introductory burnfire to the concluding wedding, there are conveys of sadness, discontent, and frustration. But, for every quarrel at dinner between the mother and the father, there will be a still of a peacock in the snow. For every shot of a construction laborer in the summer, the townspeople will gather at midnight to celebrate the passing of cruise liner. Fellini reminds the audience that although the extreme seasons will discomfort me, “a m'arcòrd/ I will remember” the Springs of my life.

As his nurses escort the institutionalized uncle back to a car, they inquire after why climbed the tree. His aged face animates with a grin, “Non so/ I don’t know.” The uncle then swings his head and giggles. “I just don’t know.” And as the uncle smiled, the viewer just chuckles.