El Viaje de Sebastian (2009)

Title: El Viaje de Sebastian (Sebastian’s Trip) (2009)

Director: Jorge Palacios

Review:

DIY cinema is all over the place. That’s Do It Yourself Cinema for those who aren’t familiar with the term. DIY Cinema is people making a movie for the hell of it. Just because they want to. Because they love it, because they have a passion for it. They don’t wait around for a project to get green lit, they don’t wait around for no signing of contracts, DIY cinema directors write the script, get their friends to be on them and then they film the thing! And release it! And hope to hell that someone out there cares enough to come see it. It’s kind of a thing that happens when you just want to make movies, and not wait and sit around for somebody to approve anything. That’s the kind of cinema we’ll be talking about today. It’s the kind of cinema that the guys over at Iron Fiend Productions concern themselves with.

Jorge Palacios is a Puerto Rican filmmaker who’s been around making short films for a while now, he is one of the founders Iron Fiend Productions, a company that prides itself in putting forth gory blood drenched short films to shock and tantalize. And with Jorge’s new movie “El Viaje de Sebastian” I’m absolutely certain that this was exactly what he was going after. Shock Value. Hey, the movie ends with a big “Fuck You!” and not in a metaphorical sense either. The words “Fuck You!” actually blink on and off on the screen just before the final credits role; just in case you forgot what kind of short film you’ve been watching.

How do we know Jorge Palacio’s wants to shock? Well, his short film “El Viaje de Sebastian” is chuck full of the right ingredients to do this. The story starts out with a young man (Sebastian) aimlessly wondering about, going to Blockbuster Video checking out some videos to no doubt see while he is high. He walks around town until he arrives at his sister’s house where they quickly decide to smoke some weed. They end up kissing. See what I mean by shocking? Pretty soon, they run out of drugs, so its time to get more drugs! Sebastian, as portrayed by Puerto Rican actor Sebastian Loubriel plays the character of the guy who has to go and get more weed to smoke. Unfortunately for him, the dealer (Palacios himself playing Gus the drug dealer) sells him some kind of experimental acid called 345 Trioxin (yeah just like Return of the Living Dead films) that makes Sebastian go on one murderous bad trip. Hence the short films title, “Sebastian’s Trip”.

From here on in, the film goes into incomprehensible territory. Jorge Palacios wanted to play around with color effects, editing, slow motion, basically, whatever trick he could pull out of his hat, he tried on this short to give us the illusion of being on an acid trip. Wanting to take his audience on a drug trip with him is fine by me; the thing is that coherence is sacrificed on the altar of drugs. I mean, using hallucinatory drugs will get anyone’s mind incomprehensible, but a film has to try and follow some kind of linear story, unless you are David Lynch, in which case, fine, go incomprehensible. But Jorge wasn’t going for a Lynchian vibe, my guess is he was going for something closer to what we saw in films like Roger Corman’s The Trip or those trippier scenes in Easy Rider. But hell, even those movies had some sort of story we could follow. Palacio’s short suffers a bit because of this, but hey, it’s a drug trip what can you expect? Right?

Drug films are interesting, actors can flex their acting muscles by playing characters that are completely whacked out of their skull and usually they get into some pretty crazy situations. Take Benicio del Toro and Johnny Depp on Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas for example, an excellent drug trip movie which becomes even better thanks to Terry Gilliam’s visionary direction. Those tripped out scenes in the hotel room? Priceless. Requiem for a Dream is another great one. Palacio’s El Viaje de Sebastian puts its main character through all sorts of horrible situations. Getting high and kissing his sister is one. Killing every girl he happens upon while he is walking is another. Talking to spirits and demons is another one. To Sebastian’s credit, Ill say he is always a champion for willingly saying “yes” to acting in some of the scenes on this movie! Like I said, its main purpose is to shock. And it does shock. I’m sure that was Jorge’s intention right from the start. Hey, there’s even some nudity on this one. Pretty hardcore full frontal stuff on this one. Actually, I think the movie went a bit over the top with its nudity, by actually placing a couple of seconds of porn spliced in a scene. In this, Jorge Palacio’s short filmed suddenly reminded me of a grindhouse film from the 70s called Thriller: A Cruel Picture. A film in which actors sex scenes where for real. But what Jorge did on this one is he spliced real porn into his short film. Was the porn scene too much on “El Viaje de Sebastian”? Was it necessary? You be the judge. I guess it really depends on what you can take.

On a technical level, the film does have a few faults, and really, this is something to be expected from this type of guerilla filmmaking. But there’s a couple of little things I couldn’t pass up, like there is a scene in which Sebastian is stabbing this girl, and you could just tell that somebody was just throwing a bucket of blood on her. I mean, the blood was coming from the wrong direction, and really, nobody bleeds that profusely! On another drug infused sequence, a naked girl is being bathed in blood, again, you can see somebody is just pouring that blood on her from above. Little things like that take you out of the movie immediately. There are some instances where the editing is a little off, where you can see the actor waiting for someone to scream “action!” These are little seconds that could have been snipped away at the time of editing. I appear on this film, yet I have no idea how my character fits in the story because it appears out of nowhere. We are supposed to infer that these guys are cops. For some reason, one of them is holding a severed penis in his hand. Why? Nobody knows because it isn’t explained. I always thought that would make sense at the end of the day, but there it is. A severed penis on a dudes hand for no reason. Again, were supposed to infer that it’s all part of Sebastian’s drug infused murderous rampage. Jorge Palacios (the short films director) suddenly stops the movie saying that everything is going wrong! He wonders how he can fix it! That scene seemed like genuine frustration to me.

There is a scene on which Sebastian starts having these visions and he sees a man dressed in a Halloween suit talking to him, making him do evil things, like killing. The thing is that I’m pretty sure its not supposed to be a man in a Halloween suit. I’m guessing that it’s supposed to be an evil spirit or demon talking to Sebastian from beyond! But come on! That’s a guy in a Halloween mask! His got those Halloween gloves on, the ones that look like skeleton hands. It was just not a very convincing depiction of a demon. Though Ive never seen one, Im pretty sure they wouldn’t go around dressed in a Halloween suit. I would put a bit more attention on make up effects next time.

I cannot really say anything about the films themes or story because this is not a short film that concerns itself with that type of thing. This is a short film about a guy going to buy some drugs, and going on a messed up drug trip. Jorge is trying to give its audience a visceral experience, a shocking experience. He wants them to either leave angry and upset, or laughing his or her ass off. And really, when you watch this type of short film, you either love it or you hate it. It’s trying to be offensive, and it’s trying hard. So be ready for that. But I applaud Palacio’s for going out there and doing his thing. It takes guts to make a movie, and when you are into gore/shock cinema, it isn’t easy to please an audience! This type of film is the kind that not everybody will watch, its aimed at a smaller audience, one that enjoys the more twisted and bizarre things that life has to offer. Not for the squeamish!

Silent Running (1971)

Title: Silent Running (1971)

Director: Douglas Trumbull

Stars: Bruce Dern

Review:

The lonely guy in a spaceship premise is one that has been used many times in the movie world. Basically, all you have to do is find an excuse to leave a guy alone in a spaceship in the vastness of space; you see how he deals with disconnecting from society, and you got yourself a movie. This premise was recently used in Duncan Jones’s Moon (2009). The trick in this kind of film is to keep things interesting even though the whole movie rests on the shoulders of one solitary character, one actor. In the wrong hands the results can be extremely boring, in the right hands, this kind of premise can go all sorts of interesting places.

Silent Running is about a space crew that flies around in these gargantuan spaceships that have these gigantic dome structures attached to them with forests and animals in them. These spaceships exist as a way of preserving Earth’s flora and fauna. You know, just in case we humans screw it up so bad down here on earth that we eradicate our forests. Problem comes when the company decides to recall the ships so they can be used commercially. They tell the crew that they have to explode the domes with nuclear explosions and then bring the ships back to earth. This upsets the main character of the film, Freeman Lowell. You see, Freeman is an environmentalist. He has been working on the maintenance of these forest domes for years and now he doesn’t want to participate or allow their destruction. So he takes matters into his own hands and steals the ship!

Douglas Trumbull, this films director worked on the special effects of a little film called 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). While working on 2001, Trumbull had the idea for this movie in his head. When the folks over at Universal Studios decided to give five new filmmakers one million dollars each to make their own films, Trumbull’s project was given the green light as one of those lucky five. Problem for me is that special effects guys don’t necessarily make for good storytellers or directors. I’ve seen this sort of thing happen a couple of times. Studios think that just because a guy was involved in f/x work on some other film, that this immediately makes them capable of directing a film. Examples of how disastrous this can be are the following films: Spawn (1997) where the director Mark A.Z. Dipee had previously worked on a couple of fx heavy films (like Jurassic Park and The Abyss) so New Line decided to give him a film to direct. We all know how Spawn turned out. Another example of this was the film Virus (1999) directed by special effects guy John Bruno. I believe Virus was one of the few instances when I actually didn’t give a shit about taking a bathroom break in the middle of a movie. Theres more examples, but these two are the most classic ones for me. Okay, heres a more recent one: Eragorn (2006). See what I mean? Strange thing is that Silent Running was made three years after 2001: A Space Odyssey, yet the special effects work is not better! The spaceships are obviously miniatures, which is something that never happened to me while watching Kubrick's film.

In my opinion, this is why Silent Running never really took off. They had everything they needed to make a good film. They had a great location. This movie was filmed inside of an Aircraft Carrier that was about to be decommissioned. It was the perfect place to build the sets for the interior of the ship. They had whiz kid model makers doing all the miniature models of the spaceships. They had John Dykstra working on the films visual effects. They had creative liberty from Universal Studios who wanted to let these five young directors do their thing. The success of Easy Rider which was an independent film produced by two new young filmmakers (Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda) actually made them take this initiative of giving new directors a chance at creating a film without the interruption of the studio executives breathing down your neck. So this film had many things in its favor. What it didn’t have was a true blue director, a guy who knows how to tell a story in a way so that the audience will understand it. Douglas Trumbull was learning how to make a movie with this one. And you know what they say, some guys got it and some just don’t.

What else went wrong with this picture? Well, they had a decent premise for their film. That of a guy going up in space in order to preserve nature. I mean, it’s a noble gesture no doubt. The problem is that after the main character steals the ship and he drifts off into space, the movie turns completely boring. From there on in, the film is all about Freeman jogging around the ship, doing maintenance on the ship, playing poker with two robots, doing all sorts of mundane tasks. Basically, there is not a lot of conflict on the film. It’s not even about the company coming to get him for trying to steal the ship.Its not about Freeman encountering an alien species. Its not about anything! It’s just Freeman, up in space, living the life of a hippy; walking around in these robes that make him look like some religious freak or something. I mean, it just wasn’t that exciting. Not even in its last frames. Douglas Trumbull actually had a way better film planned before he started shooting. And from the sounds of it, it was going to be a heck of a lot more exciting then this one. Apparently for budgetary reasons, he went in a very different direction. The film he had planned was so much cooler, it sounds faster paced, more interesting, more complex than how it eventually turned out.

Bruce Dern (the crazy war veteran from Joe Dante’s The Burbs) is the actor who plays Freeman Lowell. He plays a guy who loves nature so much that he is willing to kill for it. And here’s where the movie kind of goes against its own message. On the one hand, the film wants to say “lets save nature! Nature is our friend!” but on the other hand the film has its main character killing another crew member so he can save his precious forest. I thought that made a villain out of the main character. It kind of turns him into a mad man. I’m all for nature, but I’m not going to kill someone to save a tree. Other things don’t make sense in this movie, for example, why do they have to blow up the domes with nuclear bombs? Couldn’t they just take those domes and set them somewhere on earth, in this way helping the environment? But I guess greedy companies don’t think that way. They think about the big bucks first.

Silent Running is a one note film. It has an interesting premise but not a very compelling or exciting execution. The film asks you to sympathize with a crazy hippy willing to kill people to save nature, which is a really hard thing to do. Not convinced this movie is super hippified? Just wait till you hear the hippy tunes that this film uses for its soundtrack! Its not that I don’t like 70s rock and roll, but the songs they chose for this movie simply do not match with the visuals. I mean, Trumbull was emulating Kubrick, but Kubrick took extra care in using the perfect music for the perfect scenes. On Silent Running the songs do not go with the visuals…at all. I mean the movie had its heart in the right place, but it wasn’t well executed. Probably because of Trumbull’s inexperience as a director.

The DVD for this film is jam packed full of extras, even when the film itself isnt all that great. It has a 47 minute making of feature which I actually found more interesting then the film itself! It really takes you into what it takes to make a movie. I loved the interviews with the director and actor of the film, where they kind of look back at what they did all those years ago. Just the fact that I enjoyed the behind the scenes more then the film itself should let you know what you are in for if you watch this one. If you’re interested in seeing every science fiction film ever made during the 70s, give this one a look, everyone else should steer away from this one.

Rating: 1 1/2 out of 5

The spanish release poster translates to "Mysterious Spaceships"

A Big Thank You to all my Readers!

I just wanted to say a big thank you to all my readers out there. I started this blog about seven months ago and it’s been steadily growing in reader ship. So far we got 41 readers! Thanks to all 41 of you who have read my movie reviews and commented on them!


For those of you who have just tuned in, the basic concept of this blog is to review all kinds of films, keep it varied. I don’t want to limit myself to one single genre or type of film. I like the fact that the blog is about all kinds of films from all kinds of genres, keeps things fresh and interesting. From the sleaziest Ken Russell film to the best of Federico Fellini.

So I hope you guys have enjoyed reading so far. I would like to hear your comments on how you all think I could improve the blog. If there’s anything at all that can be done better or differently, I’m open to suggestions.

Francisco Gonzalez

The Film Connoisseur


P.S. Here are the previews to a movie I made called Cannabis Cannibal Exodus, its a post apocaliptic zombie comedie about four friends trying to survive the zombie threat before they blow up the island they live in (Puerto Rico) with nukes. Sorry guys, but the trailers in spanish, cause I make my movies in spanish. Hey, but at least you could appreciate it from a visual standpoint. It was premiered in a real movie theater...great experience!!

The Hurt Locker (2009)

Title: The Hurt Locker (2009)

Director: Kathryn Bigelow

Starring: Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, Guy Pierce, Ralph Fiennes, David Morse

The Hurt Locker is the movie with all the Oscar Buzz this year (2010) and if you ask this Film Connoisseur, it actually deserves it. In my opinion, sometimes the Oscars make this big deal about a certain movie, and when you actually get down to seeing it you end up asking yourself if that was in deed the best movie that the American film industry had to offer that year. Some nominations make you think that maybe the people in charge don’t really care much about good cinema. Sometimes it feels like they are just looking for the cutest film that they can market and make money with. Juno and Sunshine Millionaire come to mind. Not that they are bad films. But damn it, did they really deserve all that buzz and attention? This years Oscar nominations have not been announced yet, but if the attention that this film is getting is any indication of what we can expect at the Oscars, then The Hurt Locker is going to be THE movie to win awards next Oscar night. The film has already won many other respected awards across the world. The critics seem to love it and recommend it. So what’s the big deal with The Hurt Locker? Is it really as good a film as it’s being hyped up to be?

The Hurt Locker follows a group of soldiers in Bagdad who belong to a bomb disarming unit. Basically, the story develops right smack in the middle of the invasion of Iraq. United States has forcibly occupied the nation, they have invaded it by force. The people from Iraq are not happy with this so they organize terrorist attacks, by planting bombs in cars and buildings and even in the middle of the street. This is their attempt at somehow thwarting the United States ever growing control over their country. So in comes this small military unit in charge of dismantling these bombs. It’s a tough job but somebody has got to do it. What kind of toll will this war take on the psyche of these young men?

The reasons for all the hoopla are simple; this is a very well directed, acted, edited film. There are a couple of things that make it a special production though. Number one, the film was filmed in Jordan. Bigelow and crew flew themselves to East Asia and shot this film right there, in the eye of the storm as they say. Filming a movie this way, under a difficult political climate is not something new. It was done before in 2004 for a film called Turtles Can Fly from director Bahman Gohbadi; a very touching film that talks about the U.S. invasion of Iraq but from the perspective of the children who live there. Children who earn their money picking up live mines and re-selling them on the black market. It’s a very sad film, I highly recommend it if you enjoyed The Hurt Locker. But just because its been done before doesnt mean that filming The Hurt Locker was any less challenging for Bigelow and crew. Shooting a movie this way is a gargantuan task. To pull off such a good movie under those circumstances makes the film a great achievement in my book.

Kathryn Bigelow is known for making ‘macho’ films, even though she her self is not a macho. She’s a woman, which is really what makes her films stand out. It’s what has always set her apart from other female directors, who tend to focus on less action oriented films. And her films aren’t just action films, they are guy films. Main characters are guys being tough, robbing banks, jumping off airplanes and now, going to war. Bigelow put all her filmmaking experience on to this film. One look at it and you know there’s an experienced director behind the camera, the shots, the angles, the style. The documentary style is of course a great choice because it gives it all a news reel footage feel which we commonly associate with war images. Plus it puts us in on the action. But the handheld isn’t abused on this film. It’s a controlled thing, similar to what we saw in Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler (2008) where most of the film was filmed documentary style, but keeping camera movement under control. Loved that about The Hurt Locker.

The thing about The Hurt Locker is that it’s a great war film. It shows us not only the horrors of war, but it also shows us how the soldiers who go to war are affected by it on a personal and psychological level. These guys see death and dismemberment on a day to day basis, for real. These guys are shooting and killing and getting killed for real. Literally, your next breath might be your last. It’s hard to keep a sane mind under those circumstances and I loved how the movie addresses this from various angles. From the angle of the level headed soldier, doing his job, to the crazy loose cannon who’s all about doing things the reckless way. We also get to see things through the eyes of the one soldier who cant take the horrors of war and looses it. This movie is concerned with letting us know how these guys are transformed by the experience of war. They are never the same. I felt echoes of Stallone’s First Blood; where the man turned into a killing machine can no longer survive in a ‘normal society’. War calls him, like a drug. These soldiers are never the same when they come back. They are fractured souls and minds.

Other things I liked about the movie? Loved those moments when they are going to disarm a bomb. Lots of tension on this moments, especially when the people of Iraq are watching from their homes as these crazy American soldiers are disarming bombs in the middle of their streets. Bigelow directs the suspense with great precision. I liked that every now and then through out the film we get great little cameos that make the film better. Like Guy Pierce, Ralph Fiennes and David Morse. Kathryn Bigelow’s movies have always had a good soundtrack, always rock and rollish, and this one is no exception.

Performance wise, the movie wins as well. Jeremy Renner is getting all the buzz for possible Oscar nomination. He does a cold as stone soldier, living on the brink, with a devil may care attitude about him. Anthony Mackie out does himself as well, as the more level headed soldier, following the rules and the protocols, he hides his emotions, but at one point in the film he completely lets them out and it’s a great moment.

This is an all around excellent movie. Good production from all angles, made all the more special because of the circumstances and localizations in which they chose to shoot the film. One of Bigelow’s best. I hope she will continue making movies, and I hope she wins the Oscar for best director. Let’s face it; the best director award has NEVER been given to a woman! That has to do with the fact that not many women direct films, which is also wrong in my book. But I still find it surprising that only three woman have been nominated for this award, and it surprises me even more that not one of them has won it. I think The Hurt Locker is a film that the academy cannot ignore, and Bigelow’s direction is hard to miss as well. Here’s something interesting to think about: if Bigelow is nominated for best director for The Hurt Locker, and James Cameron gets nominated for best director for Avatar, then these two ex love birds will be fighting for the prestigious award. It will be interesting to see if she gets the nomination, and more interesting to see her beat Cameron to it. I loved Avatar, but between you and me, I’m rooting for Bigelow! After all, she was directing a tough film in the real world, sweating bullets underneath the dessert sun! Putting her life in peril behind the camera in a real location, not safely seating behind a computer monitor.

Rating: 5 out of 5

You go Kathryn, we're all rooting for ya!

Nights of Cabiria (1957)

Title: Nights of Cabiria (1957)

Director: Federico Fellini

Cast: Gulietta Masina, Francois Perier, Franca Marzi

In Rob Marshall’s recent tribute to Fellini and his films, Nine (2009) the main character of the film (who is a film director) is constantly reminded how everyone preferred his older films. Everyone tells him they love his “hits” before his films got all “weird”. As I continue watching all of Fellini’s films, I kind of see where this comment is stemming from. I find that the further back I go in Fellini’s filmology, the better his movies get. But this is also the case in many directors’ repertoires; their earlier work is their best. Don’t know if this is the case with Fellini because I’ve yet to see more of his earlier films as well as the ones he did near the end of his illustrious career. But as it turns out, Nights of Cabiria, his sixth film has turned out to be one of my personal favorites.

A lover of films lives for that day when he or she watches that true masterpiece. That film that shakes your emotions and makes you feel; reminding you that you are alive. These films are out there, it’s just that sometimes it takes us a while to get to them. But when we finally find them, you feel like the search was worth it. Federico Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria is one of these special films. It’s such a powerful and moving experience! I must admit, it brought tears to my eyes! I wasn’t alone in letting the old waterworks flow either, its just such a heart wrenching film.

Gulietta Masina (Fellini’s wife) plays Cabiria, a prostitute working the streets of Italy. She is a happy jolly spirit in spite of the kind of life she lives. She is extremely poor, lives in the smallest little house in the middle of nowhere. She has to face men who do not appreciate who she is and are only looking to take advantage of her. But, she seems used to it and continues with her life even though she is not contempt with her current state of affairs. She is looking for a change; a way to leave the prostitute lifestyle behind. Will she ever do it? Will she ever find true love and leave it all behind?

The oldest Fellini film I have seen was La Strada (1954) also starring the great Gulietta Masina. In that film she also plays a poverty stricken individual looking for a way out. She ends up working for Zampano, an abusive man looking for a woman to be his slave. In La Strada Masina managed to make you care for her character through her portrayal of a charismatic and naive woman searching for happiness in this cruel world. I was just as moved by Nights of Cabiria and Gulietta Masina’s performance as I was by La Strada because Nights of Cabiria is similar to La Strada because its also about a good hearted woman in search for happiness even though life constantly denies it from her. For some reason, earlier Fellini films went more toward sentimental side of things, looking to pull your heart strings. As he progressed, his films got more existential, darker, and at times surreal. But his earlier work? Pure emotion! This film won the Academy Award in 1957 for best foreign film. And it won Gulietta Masina the best actress award at the Cannes Film Festival that very same year. I consider it an important film in Fellini’s career because it’s sort of a transitional film between the sentimental films of his past like La Strada and the more socially conscious and personal films that came after like La Dolce Vita and 8 1/2.

One of the things that makes this movie so special is Gulietta Masina performance as Cabiria. This is one of cinemas most memorable and endearing characters. Fellini makes you fall in love with her because she is such a saint amongst sinners. She is a feisty spirit, but one gets the impression that this feistiness is just a façade she puts on as a way of protecting herself from the evil in the world. Truth be told, she is a very sweet soul and if you dig deep enough, her beauty as a human being emerges. She is happy go lucky, naïve and innocent. It’s no wonder life always ends up slapping her in the face. This naiveté goes in direct contrast with her profession as a prostitute. She “lives the life” as someone says in the film, yet she looks like a little girl, dresses in an awkward fashion and is small in stature. She is most of the time dancing, smiling and excited. Always looking at the lighter side of things even though she lives in pure poverty, yet she has got a sadness inside that she prefers to hide. And this is where the movie just grabs me. I’m a sucker for movies with poverty stricken characters. These films always get to me. And this is one of them, right up there in poverty with Charlie Chaplin’s The Tramp. These are characters that are so poor, so desperate, that you cant help feeling sorry for them. One look at Gulietta Masina’s performance and there’s no doubt that theres some Chaplin in there. She’s got clownish movements and moves at times as if she was dancing to music, which doesn’t surprise because Fellini used to film his movies with music in the background. It’s one of the reasons why most of his films were dubbed.

Speaking of the movies themes, this one is all about Cabiria’s search for happiness. She is a character looking for change, a way out of poverty and prostitution. She doesn’t want to end up like her older prostitute friends; old and living in a cave or underneath a bridge. The movie makes a daring comment for the times it was made. Considering this movie was made in the ultra conservative 50’s and in Italy where Catholicism reigns supreme; I was surprised to see this movie bashing on religion so openly. But this theme was always a recurring one in many of Fellini’s films. He later revisited religion in La Dolce Vita. But on Nights of Cabiria, the main character learns a valuable lesson about relying on yourself to make things change in your life and not in some invisible magical force that’s supposed to make everything okay. The movie asks the question: Does praying really change or solve anything? Is anyone really listening out there?

As a Fellini film, this one has many of his trademarks. This one reminded me a lot of La Dolce Vita and Amarcord. We get Fellini’s trademark scenes of Italian nightlife, bursting with energy and people. Fellini loves doing this, suddenly, the streets are filled with cars, lots of people talking at the same time, people riding in motorcycles, people fighting, dancing, getting on cars and driving off. You know; lots of life. It also has the religious angle, with a whole procession of desperate people pleading to their deities for help. Crying to statues and effigies, all the while the main character watches and observes. He did this in La Dolce Vita as well, with Marcello Mastroiani in the middle of a bogus apparition of the Virgin Mary. On this film Cabiria walks into a magic show, a restaurant with exotic dancers and he even ends the movie with a parade of music same as in 8 ½. Fellini, just like any good director, liked to revisit certain key images and themes in his films; Cabiria was no exception.

In conclusion, Id like to let you guys and gals out there know that this is one of the best movies I have ever seen in my life. It makes you truly care for its main character, to the point where you don’t want anything to happen to her. You actually fear for her at one point. Its amazing! I never thought a movie could make me care so much for a fictional character, but Nights of Cabiria did. After you watch it, it leaves a lasting impression on you. You will care for these characters and their lives. You will talk about them long after you see the film, and you will be reminded once again why you love movies.

Rating: 5 out of 5