source: Fellini Satyricon

Fellini - Satyricon

This movie is truly mesmerizing and, like Petronius' original novel, on which it was based, it one of a kind. This film is has bizarre dialog, repulsive images, many freaks of nature, strange music, scenes that don't make sense, and yet at the same time, repeated viewings will show that it does make sense... simply because the moral of this story is that it doesn't make sense, and life can go in a thousand crazy directions, we're all like dice in the hands of fate. Other comments: Having read the original work, I can say that this is a very interesting interpretation. While not strictly faithful to the book and while sort of splicing certain events together and introducing some new scenes, this movie is actually pretty close in spirit to the book and as such, as I said, unique and really able to constitute its own genre. Comedy? Tragedy? Farce? Epic? Acid trip? Who knows!

Permeated with hedonism and sexuality, highly theatrical, very bizarre and surrealist while still keeping it on the ground and making it more potent and little coherence storywise; its fragments of Petronius classic (which I haven't read) wrapped in Fellinis incredible imagination. Scenography, casting and settings are here of the absolutely highest order. Each frame is composed with the utmost care it seems, perhaps inspired by the same artworks found in the movie. Like the old Greeks this movie is made as true art in a non decadent manner contrasted with the decadent Rome we meet in the movie. There are so much depth to this movie its no use trying to cover them here, but one key theme is, I think, what was described as the flower of youth and the withering of it, that is Encolpio's youth. Highly recommended if you like a movie out of the ordinary, the images you see here will never be forgotten.

This is by far not the best film I've ever seen, but it is probably the most important film I've ever seen. I saw it for the first time when it came out in 69, when I was 16. Before then, I was only marginally interested in films. Something to while away the time. And then I saw Satyricon. And life has never been the same ever since. All of a sudden I realised that film was more than simply recording images, all of a sudden it dawned on me that cinema could be art. Now, maybe Satyricon isn't great art, but to me at that time it was overwhelming. I'm sure other films have had this same catalytic effect on other people. Satyricon got me hooked on film, and I never looked back. I saw the film again about 10 years ago. I was amazed how it was still capable of exiting me. In spite of its wooden acting, its cardboard backgrounds, the unsynchronized lip movements this is amazing movie magic.

Great visual impact, one of Fellini's finest moments. If you watch such movies you just see how daring once producers and directors (and actors) were and what the movie business of Hollywood did to creativity. Once a good part of movie-making was art, nowadays it's just pulp, bad pulp, lukewarm stuff - most people involved in the movie bizz are no more artists, but of course, just my opinion. As the story itself is (imo) not always top-notch only a 8, for cinematography and score etc. The movie gets a straight 10. A gem surely not for the common taste, but for the connoisseur of the unusual just a fantastic and most delicious dish.

it seems be a chess game between Petronius and Fellini. or a fight. or competition between two universes who become one. Satyricon is a portrait of Rome. in same measure, the portrait of contemporary society.because it is illustration of a simple recipes : black humor, sexual fantasies, trip in the different parts of an empire, Encolpius challenges and brutal truth, history and dream, images, meets, grotesque party and the status of viewer as witness to the universe under Nero who reminds work of Pasolini or Tarkovski or new Romanian cinema wave, each as looking of the truth. Fellini Satyricon has a gift to each category of public. and this is the basic virtue. in same measure, it is a reinvent of Rome and the testimony of a kind of Odiseus about people and society and desires and gluttony.a show. a fascinating one

This is certainly a unique film. Other film makers were influenced but this was never matched for sheer visual opulence and visionary style. All this does not necessarily make for an easy watch for whilst Fellini is never particularly bothered about having a coherent narrative, this one is as fragmentary and disjointed as they come. Apparently the original written source only exists in bits and pieces and this follows that even towards the end finishing a sequence with half finished sentence. Can't deny the look though and almost any captured frame would be a joy to look at. Its just that here there might be a little too much of a good thing, too rich maybe but hard to overly criticise. Love it or loathe it, this probably really is a film you have to see.