#1: See a movie at the Virginia Film Festival

       

         Kimberly and I went to see the final Virginia Film Festival showing at Culbreth Theater on Sunday night at 6:30 pm. When I was scrolling through the list of films they were showing this year, I automatically froze on the title La Dolce Vita – I was finally going to get my chance to watch this Italian masterpiece! My favorite movie is Under the Tuscan Sun because it is exactly the way I wish I could live my life: with spontaneity and gusto and love. One of the most memorable characters in the movie that she meets actually personifies and even impersonates one of the characters from La Dolce Vita, saying that she was the inspiration for Sylvia and that she was a close lover of Federico Fellini. I knew I had to see the film after this scene, and I knew I had to play in a public fountain after it as well (which I have done).

 

        

            
  The film was produced in 1960 and is held as one of the greatest European films of all time; in it, Fellini diverges from all previous films in his lack of conventional character development and even central plot, but he makes up for it in startling scenes of shocking beauty of the Italian culture post-World War II. The scenes are a bit confusing to follow, but the movie overall has a great eye for the glitterati and those who aspire that lifestyle. Fellini explores love and lust and happiness but ends the film quite abruptly and leaves the questions ambiguous even after a full three hours. Watch it if you’re into foreign films or are interested in idealized beauty of the 1960s. In this day it serves to be more thought provoking and less entertaining than the average movie, but just as visually stimulating.

        



P.S. When I saw the intro trailer to all of the Virginia Film Festival movies, I wish I’d had a chance to see each and every one of them. I’m putting those movies on my must-see-movie-list, so if you want to watch them with me just drop me a line!

“I like lots of things, but there are three things that I like most: love, love, and love.” – Sylvia from La Dolce Vita