THE GREAT BEAUTY
Starring Toni Servillo, Carlo Verdone,
Directed by Paolo Sorrentino
Rome wasnt undone in a day. Rather, its been coming apart at the well-tailored seams for a spell. Or so suggests director Paolo Sorrentinos visually resplendent, Fellini-indebted film that serves as a dual character study of sharp-witted, self-deprecating author Jep Gambardella (Toni Servillo, wonderfully devilish and droll) and The Eternal City he calls his dysfunctional home.
Understanding that theres perhaps little sense to be made of a schizophrenic metropolis where the pious congregate and corrupt prosper, Sorrentino instead embraces its inherent ridiculousness without sacrificing the shroud of melancholy.
Much like The Wolf of Wall Street, The Great Beauty understands that convincingly depicting decadence and depravity demands some over-indulgence on the filmmakers part.
Introduced to us amidst a cacophony of thudding electro and kaleidoscope of gyrating sequins, Jep couldnt look any more disenchanted with the extravagant bacchanal staged in honour of his 65th birthday. Four decades on from his first novel without a follow-up to show for all of his supposed promise, hes reached a point in life where the deaths of intimates and absence of new experiences invite self-reflection.
Fortunately, this soul-searching is hardly a sedentary pursuit. Instead, it sees him drifting through what could be Romes troubled dreams, encountering pretentious performance artists, lovelorn strippers and saintly nuns while shifting from one surreal locale (the capsized Costa Concordia luxury liner) to the next (a carnivalesque botox clinic).
Increasingly, were left to wonder if that opening salvo of revelry wasnt, in fact, the death throes of a decadent society. If so, it must be said that Sorrentino throws one hell of a memorial service.
