Film > World Cinema - Classic

Arguably Fellini’s greatest film, La Dolce Vita is a searing critique of a celebrity-obsessed, hedonistic world as seen through the eyes of a fluff-peddling journalist - Marcello Mastroianni famously plays a gossip columnist and would-be novelist who chronicles "the sweet life'' of fading aristocrats, second-rate movie stars and aging playboys in high society Rome in the 50s. Armed with his “paparazzi” (the film coined the term), the philandering Marcello ultimately succumbs to loneliness, meaningless and tragedy as he flees his obsessive, suicidal fiancé while vainly vying for the affections of a vivacious screen goddess (Anita Ekberg). A departure from Fellini’s earlier neorealist films (I Vitelloni, La Strada), La Dolce Vita ushered the more surreal, lyrical style of colour films like Juliet of the Spirits, and, winner of the Palme D'Or at Cannes (1960), remains a milestone of European cinema.