This film is, in large part, homosexuality seen through a heterosexual male's lens. As a result, it fails at basic things. For instance, the blonde "protagonist" has a decent-looking male lover his age (who is regrettably unattractive in personality) but Fellini insists on having him desire a very homely-looking boy, one who also has an unappealing dully coquettish personality. Why? Obviously, this is to make a negative point about ancient Rome and homosexuality. "Ewww... how decadent, uncomfortable, and wrong it is!" That's apparently supposed to be the reaction. Fellini seems to conveniently exploit ignorance about homosexuality in his often drab little theatrical universe. The irony is probably that, given all of its varying settings and its "art is free!" mantra, the world itself is almost suffocatingly puny. There is a tremendous lack of vision in this film. I wonder if a man even needs to be gay to see how thin it is, just looking at the homosexuality angle.
Even the superficially affirming scene with the minotaur may primarily be the sad "dominance" hypothesis reconstituted (where male homosexuality is not common at all in any animal species but is rather merely displays of dominance and submission - sexual aggression). Male lions, for instance, aren't allowed to enjoy sex according to humans. They simply must be aggressive rapists, or whatever.
Fellini seems to enjoy the "freak show" - a carnival of second-rate wonders and horrors. A similar tack was taken with the Caligula film. "Oh, gee, those ancient Romans sure were gross, weren't they? Eww.. isn't homosexuality awful?" In that film it was even more pointed. The only homosexual sex act that occurred was between two very unattractive men in an extremely brief corridor scene, framed by Malcolm McDowell's ugly mug trying to look uglier than usual. Fisting is substituted for gay sex in that film in a totally brazen anti-gay schtick - where violence, pain, humiliation, and terribly subjugation are supposed to be the point of homosexual acts between men. Again, it's homosexuality through the prism of an ignorant heterosexual male point of view.
While this film isn't as bad as that in some ways, as it's less simplistic in that regard, the casting of the pubescent boy is an obvious example of Fellini's refusal to present sex in a positive light. This can be seen in his film Cassanova very clearly, more so than in this film - which, at least, has two good-looking actors in it (despite their dishpan personalities). Cassanova has a scene where a stereotypically young gay man (hardly the apotheosis of gay male desire) appears, scantily clad, for a bit of dinner theater with a really ugly man. The grotesque and the camp seem to be the extent of Fellini's engagement with concepts of male homosexuality.
I have read various opinions about what Fellini's point was... what themes he was trying to convey. Regardless, I can only say that nothing in this film was particularly thematically scintillating. The closest thing to interest was in the disconcerting nature of the radical setting/tone shifts, which, at least, distracted from the annoying "personalities" of the characters. If the idea was that the blonde couldn't find satisfaction then there is some coherence between the on-screen happenings to the character and the audience's frustration.
The film felt like a demo rather than a finished production.
Even the superficially affirming scene with the minotaur may primarily be the sad "dominance" hypothesis reconstituted (where male homosexuality is not common at all in any animal species but is rather merely displays of dominance and submission - sexual aggression). Male lions, for instance, aren't allowed to enjoy sex according to humans. They simply must be aggressive rapists, or whatever.
Fellini seems to enjoy the "freak show" - a carnival of second-rate wonders and horrors. A similar tack was taken with the Caligula film. "Oh, gee, those ancient Romans sure were gross, weren't they? Eww.. isn't homosexuality awful?" In that film it was even more pointed. The only homosexual sex act that occurred was between two very unattractive men in an extremely brief corridor scene, framed by Malcolm McDowell's ugly mug trying to look uglier than usual. Fisting is substituted for gay sex in that film in a totally brazen anti-gay schtick - where violence, pain, humiliation, and terribly subjugation are supposed to be the point of homosexual acts between men. Again, it's homosexuality through the prism of an ignorant heterosexual male point of view.
While this film isn't as bad as that in some ways, as it's less simplistic in that regard, the casting of the pubescent boy is an obvious example of Fellini's refusal to present sex in a positive light. This can be seen in his film Cassanova very clearly, more so than in this film - which, at least, has two good-looking actors in it (despite their dishpan personalities). Cassanova has a scene where a stereotypically young gay man (hardly the apotheosis of gay male desire) appears, scantily clad, for a bit of dinner theater with a really ugly man. The grotesque and the camp seem to be the extent of Fellini's engagement with concepts of male homosexuality.
I have read various opinions about what Fellini's point was... what themes he was trying to convey. Regardless, I can only say that nothing in this film was particularly thematically scintillating. The closest thing to interest was in the disconcerting nature of the radical setting/tone shifts, which, at least, distracted from the annoying "personalities" of the characters. If the idea was that the blonde couldn't find satisfaction then there is some coherence between the on-screen happenings to the character and the audience's frustration.
The film felt like a demo rather than a finished production.