Amarcord Blu-ray/DVD

Studio: Criterion

Apr 12, 2011 Web Exclusive By Hays Davis

As the vibrant cast of villagers in Amarcord provided moviegoers in the early 70s with director Federico Fellini's semi-autobiographical childhood time capsule, Criterion's Blu-Ray edition finds the world of the fictional Borgo charmingly and gorgeously intact.

Drawing on Fellini's reminiscences of life in Rimini in 1930s Fascist Italy, Amarcord ("I remember") drops its viewers into a year in the lives of the town's inhabitants. Narrators appear occasionally to address the camera, framing the moment or drawing the audience into something new. At the end of the movie one of them turns to properly send us off, as though always aware that we had been an ongoing presence.

The characters that are introduced and revisited live their lives as though everything seems ripe with meaning or significance. While touching on themes of family, boyhood and sexual awakening, and community, Fellini also targets Mussollini's regime and the Catholic church through their influence on the villagers, who are both excited by Fascist trappings and morally repressed to a state of bawdy arrested development.

Fellini's inclusion of fine detail reaches the soul of small-town community and goes a long way toward enabling the film to resonate. A lawyer, being one of higher education, is regularly questioned about anything of weight, in the way that one character drives home the fact that dolphins are intelligent since the information came from their dentist. A few seconds are taken with a boy showing off his silly face while sitting in the carriage of a funeral procession. And when a longtime inhabitant gets married and is preparing to leave, she's asked, "How will you live so far from here?"

The movie plays at times like an uproarious passing parade, though ultimately not at the expense of an emotional connection. Rather than an "ending," we simply leave the last scene we see of these characters' lives. Fellini's visit, and ours, is over.

The world of Borgo is a visual feast through Criterion's Blu-Ray treatment (an improvement over their fine DVD transfer), and the bonus elements make it well worth revisiting the movie. Fellini's Homecoming is a documentary that focuses on the director's relationship with his past, while "Felliniana" offers Amarcord-related ephemera. There's a video interview with star Magali Noel, along with archival audio interviews with Fellini and his family and friends. (www.criterion.com)

Author rating: 8/10

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Average reader rating: 9/10