La città delle donne

Plot synopsis:
Snàporaz wakes up during a train ride and has a brief fling with a woman in the bathroom, but it's cut short when the train suddenly stops and the woman gets off. Snàporaz follows her into the woods, through the wilderness and into a Grand Hotel overrun with women in attendance for a surrealistic feminist convention. He winds up in a conference about polyandry, where his presence is rejected. A frightened Snàporaz retreats to the hotel lobby, but the exit is blocked; instead he seeks refuge with a girl who offers her assistance, Donatella, inside an elevator.
Donatella leads Snàporaz into a gymnasium and forces him to don roller skates. He is yet again cornered and berated by a group of angry women who circle around him in roller skates and practice testicle-kicking with a dummy. Dazed, Snàporaz makes his exit down a flight of stairs, falling down and badly hurting himself, and into the domain of a burly woman tending to the hotel's furnace. The woman showers and offers him a ride to the train station on her motorcycle, but stops by a farm and lures Snàporaz into a nursery, where she tries to rape him. The rape is cut short by the woman's mother, who steps in to chastise her daughter, and Snàporaz decides to follow instead a lonely woman through the country side. He joins her and her girlfriends on a car ride on the promise of being delivered to the station, but the ride goes on well into the night and all they do is hang out high on drugs and listen to techno. A frustrated Snàporaz ditches them and is harassed by two more cars until he finds shelter in the off-limits private property of Dr. Xavier Katzone, who hails gunfire on his persecutors.
Dr. Katzone promises to deliver Snàporaz to the train station the following morning and invites him to stay on for a party. Snàporaz walks around Katzone's extravagant household, which is filled with sexual imagery and suggestive, phallic sculptures. He is also fascinated by his collection of sexual conquests hanging as photographs from the manor walls that light up and whisper arousing dialogue at the flick of a switch.Taking pride in his many inventions, Katzone celebrates his 10,000th conquest with an eccentric party that involves the blowing out of 10,000 candles and a performance by his wife, in which she sucks coins and pearls into her vagina by means of telekinesis. During the party, Snàporaz comes across his ex-wife, Elena, who has a drunken argument with him, and meets Donatella again.
The police (composed solely of women dressed in Nazi attire) arrive, interrupting Katzone mid-song, and announce the imminent demolition of his house. They also inform him that they've shot one of his dogs, Italo, his most beloved. A grieved Katzone buries him. Meanwhile, Snàporaz dances to Fred Astaire with Donatella and a friend of hers (who are both dressed in scanty clothing), but fails to sleep with either of them, instead getting stuck with his ex in bed. Hearing strange noises, he crawls under the bed, entering another dream-like world in which he slides down a toboggan, revisiting his childhood crushes (a sitter, a nurse, a prostitute) along the way. Caged at the end of the slide, he is transported before a strange court and judged for his masculinity. Although dismissed to go free, he decides to confront his tentative punishment, and escalates a towering boxing ring before a feminine crowd. At the top of the ring he climbs into a hot air balloon in the form of Donatella. Donatella herself fires at him from below with a machine-gun, bursting the balloon and sending Snàporaz plummeting to apparent death.
Snàporaz then wakes up on the very same train from the beginning of the film, showing the story to have been a mere nightmare. Just as he comes to this conclusion, he realizes his glasses are broken (as in his dream) and that the wagon is filled by the women that crowded his dream. The train races into a tunnel and the film ends.

Tags: cult, psychedelic, satire

Review:
Marcello Mastroianni plays "Snaporaz" (Fellini's nickname for the actor), who gets lost in a nightmare world where he is confronted with feminism, absurd satires of machismo and sexual fantasies and confusion.
This film doesn't seem to have a very good reputation, even among Fellini fans, but I was mostly enthralled with its strange, unpredictable rhythms, visually astonishing sets, sense of humor and dreamworld logic.
The cinematography (by Guiseppe Rotunno, who did a number of other Fellini films, as well as ALL THAT JAZZ, with which this picture shares some similarities) is delightful and the score is a mix of the usual carnivalesque tunes and eerie, more modern sounds...
This is another Fellini movie I'd watched many years ago, in my late teens, and didn't like at all back then.
Many people don't like La città delle donne, but like 8½ and most Fellini movies of the later period it has an extraordinary, instinctive grasp of the rhythm and symbolic power of dreams.
This movie worms its way into your own psyche in time - as with other Fellini movies, it seems to reveal scenes that are totally new and surprising, yet strangely familiar to me even though I've never seen them before.
As if I'd always been familiar with them, perhaps from a previous life - Fellini seems able to tap into a universal psychic blueprint of the soul, I think that's what it is - only a true Genius could do something like this.
I guess the fact that things are rarely LITERALLY represented in his later movies (post-La Dolce Vita), also contributes towards this, making everything more symbolic and hence, universal.But Città delle donne is also a shrill, over-the-top movie, grating in some ways, ridiculous, dated in others.
But the movie, though flawed and a rehash of some other familiar Fellini themes treated more successfully elsewhere, is also delightful in parts, with a power in the use of visual symbols that I have rarely seen before, even in his own, more overall successful movies.
For instance, the whole sequence in Dr Xavier Katzone's grotesque house, especially the mausoleum-like tunnel containing what is essentially the "essence" of his numerous past conquests, as well as the scenes of Marcello floating on the very originally-shaped "hot air balloon", Marcello being chased by the drugged-up teenage girl bullies in their squeaky old jalopies, etc - all scenes I won't be forgetting in a hurry.If one really finds nothing to like in La città delle donne, it's ultimately still an important document on the gender battles that recent humanity has crossed.
What `City of Women' has that `Casanova' did not, however, is a beautiful child-like view of things that really makes Fellini's movies fun in the first place.
Throughout the film the women are clearly in total control, and I interpret this film as a womanizer's nightmare, which makes perfect sense.The film is perfect by no means, but it's still a bit of a treasure if you're a Fellini fan who has explored most of his body of work, and yet are still starved for some Felliniesque fun.
This was a marvelous scene, with a beautiful carnival set, and above all, brilliantly scored by Luis Bacalov.Overall, I have no idea who will like this film.
It is not as much a study of eroticism as it is one man's erotic fantasy about the battle between the sexes A rich, horny Italian (Mastroianni) meets a woman on a train When the train stops, he follows her into a lonely wood, which becomes a futuristic world of forceful women who have almost entirely destroyed completely all men in their society Mastroianni's character is left alive as a curiosity piece His experiences carry him deeper and deeper into this bizarre fantasy city The film never fully provides passion and erotic lusts, but is tickling and stimulating pleasantly none the less...
Fellini's pointthat women resent the fact that men are easily excitedis most effectively carried by Donatella Damiani, a buxom and very beautiful young actress who runs nearly naked throughout the movie Although the film never tires, it never quite completes its erotic expectations either, giving priority to consider carefully its own bizarre reality It has elements of science fiction and adventure, but is more exactly a fantasy on the estrangement between men and women....
I'm not going to pretend that this is classic Fellini, or a masterpiece of Italian/European art-house cinema, but.....there's a lot going on in this movie that rewards a lengthy attention span.
I've seen most of Fellini's output, from La Strada to Ginger and Fred, and for me this movie stands out along with those two as an accessible entry point into the satirical world view of one of Italy's most interesting directors.
The film has a very intriguing screenplay, if not much else, and Marcello Mastroianni is rather good, if not great, in the lead.
It is not a brilliant piece of work, especially coming from such a highly praised director, but it is an interesting film, with a gripping dreamlike quality..
In the "City of Women", Italian master Fellini films women in order to give them immense glory and unending power..
La Città Delle Donne is not a grotesque film even though it is rightly considered by many as a crazy little tale of a hapless philanderer.In this film,Italian superstar Marcello Mastroianni appears as if he is more of a morbid widower than one of the resourceful male chauvinists who would do everything in order to prevent weak women from usurping power.Feelini freely talks about the never ending confusion of male female relationships especially in the context of transfer of power.He has made a film which will surely have problems in getting understood by all.It can be surmised that even regular,loyal Fellini fans will have problems trying to figure out the hidden message of this film.
This is the sole reason why this film necessitates multiple viewing session in order to understand why so much noise was being made about it.The focus in this film is on what all women of the world can achieve if they have solidarity.This has been shown by showing strange ways of women.Men have been reduced to ignominy as there are few taker for them.A major portion of the film is devoted to feminists who have not achieved much over the years.Fellini has shown them as they are and have always been:making fools of themselves.This film is neither pro women nor anti men.It is quite simply a beautiful film for the people who cherish the art of cinema..
The problem does not lie in the actors, (actually most of them deliver great interpretations) but in the director's vision of the movie.The film does not flow.
The sequences are not linked appropriately and sometimes are way too long: he could have obtained the very same result (shocking/amusing the audience) in half the time.Being the movie a dream by a man in his 50's, it is reasonable to express it in such a disorganized and convulsive way.
However, I do not need to see a movie to get that feeling, my own dreams are enough.Fellini was very brave to propose such a theme, especially in a very rigid society as the Italian one.
However, he failed at making the audience think about those issues, being only worried at representing his own insecurities and fears.I also found the movie very arrogant, in the sense that it made me think that Fellini wanted the audience to believe that they were watching not only a movie but "art".Frankly speaking, this film is so bad that it makes any Tinto Brass production look like a masterpiece.In the DVD's commentary the people asked to comment on Fellini's work basically said that he was a genius.
Moreover, all the people interviewed do not explain or motivate why they think he was such a great artist.He might have had a different approach to things, he might have had a personal interpretation of facts, he might have broken the clichés of his time, but defining him a genius is way too much, at least for what he has done with this movie.I think that labeling him as a genius does not allow him to be pretentious and his movie to be pointless.I still hope that "8 1/2" is going to change my mind about Fellini's work..
A man is dreaming or in a dream-like world run by angry ultra-ultra-ultra feminists who naturally scare him BUT at the same time, he tries to infiltrate their ranks because he is strongly aroused by one of these women--a lady he met and ALMOST had sex with on a train.
About the only thing I DID like about the latter portion of the film was the nightmarish amusement park atmosphere towards the end--seeing Marcello Mastroianni sliding down a seemingly endless slide as he passed midway events was pretty amazing from a technical point of view.Overall, it's a one joke film that probably would have been better as a short.
Beginning with 8 1/2, Fellini's films become deliriously dream-like, and this one more so than most to the point that one almost wishes it had been titled "Marcello in Wonderland."  It's a film that presents every possible male fear of women--with dazzling visuals through out.
Dynamic Set Pieces, Wry Observation, and Marcello Mastrionni Make My Day. My adoration for this seemingly out-of-control fantasia of male fears of woman as individual or Love Goddess is somewhat unreasonable; I do not tire of watching City of Women and have subjected others to Fellini's episodic wandering, loaded as it is with spectacular imagery; remarkably, some of them remain my friends.
In the early 1960's, Fellini experimented with drugs and underwent extensive psychoanalysis and the results of experimentation were reflected in his films, which became more personal visions and while delighting some viewers, frustrated others for their lack of linear narrative.City of Women is one of those, jammed with bizarre imagery, full of often peculiar fantasies, as it follows the Fellini stand-in, Snaporaz, as he cuts a train journey short to follow a female conquest into a world that he has never considered, a world where women dominate, a world that addresses many male anxieties and fears, a dream world full of nightmares.
That's the case with City of Women, which is easily one of Fellini's worst films.
I hate to think of anyone seeing this as their first Fellini movie because it would definitely turn them off all his other films!.
This film is a real feast for the legion of Federico Fellini fans.It has everything: the dream-like Felliniesque atmosphere, the nostalgic soundtrack by Louis Bacalov (Fellini's constant composer and co-creator of his masterpieces, Nino Rota, died in 1979),the scathing satire on the feminism and male chauvinism, and on the society at large,in which Fellini grew more and more disappointed (the best and final example is his last film "The Voice of the Moon").Perhaps, the great director is a little more bitter than ever, a little more sarcastic and nostalgic,but as a piece of art, "The City of Women" is one of the best films he has ever made.Needless to say that all the actors are superb,including the incomparable Marcello Mastroianni, Fellini's alter ego in "Otto e Mezzo".
Continuing my Fellini quest, I found City of Women to be interesting.
The acting is fine, especially from the ever compelling Marcello Mastroianni, though his performances in La Dolce Vita and 8 1/2 are even better.All in all, interesting but I personally would have preferred more subtlety.
"La cittá Dell Donne"has few assets to remember: Mastroianni, of course, and some brilliant scenes where the world of Snaporaz's erotics fantasies is brought back as a sort of entertainment show.
Of course, Fellini is a master, and "La cittá Dell Donne" is still the work of a master, who revisits one of his obsessions: women and sex and eroticism.
Big dream/nightmare vision of a man in late middle age (dapper hot daddy Marcello Mastroianni) about women, gender politics, and death.Midway through 'City of Women' we are introduced to one Dr. Katzone (literally 'Dr. Big-Dick'), representing the phallocratic, pig-man archetype.
Fellini had all the qualities to make films: great storyteller, writer, director, producer.
Back to Mastroianni, his character, Snàporaz, is very close to Marcello Rubini from "La Dolce Vita" and Guido Anselmi from "8½", ie, the alter ego of Fellini.
The conceit and premise of City of Women, another film by Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini, is the kind that if Fellini didn't come up with, he'd take it and make it his own almost by principle.
This is very much true in that scene (which includes at one point Guido, played by Marcello Mastroianni, having to use a whip as if the ladies are literal lionesses), and it's the same in this film, where Marcello (this time named just that) gets off of a train (by accident, of course) to follow a rather seductive woman into the woods.
It's so startling a place but Fellini keeps things moving by having it change from lots of women talking at once about what they would/could do to a man to take him down a notch or two, to being (somewhat) quiet while watching a film about old-time feminists in the movies.All the while Marcello watches and tries to be on the sidelines.
As you can imagine, Fellini doesn't make it that simple, and City of Women becomes a sort of (mostly) rapid-fire odyssey through the wild and crazy ways of women.
I think that because Fellini takes things to such exaggerated lengths - and it's almost to places he hasn't quite gone to before, simply with sexual content and innuendo, only Casanova comes close really - and it's so cartoonish that the satire works.
But mostly they're out to be at best beguiling and at worst murderous, such as the squad of teenage girls (some maybe younger) driving cars and blasting rock at night and making it so that Marcello has to run away from them driving after him.I think that two things make this madness work so well more than anything, and this is aside from the mesmerizing camera work and (as usual for this director) eye-catching and just magical production design: Mastroianni's performance, as he centers the film into something for us to react to - we may not totally identify with him (actually, I hope most men don't, he's basically a middle-aged horn-dog deep down), and that there are a few scenes in the second half where Marcello somehow (it's a long story) runs into his wife and they have a heart to heart about what's gone on wrong in their marriage.
And it leads up to a sequence that is at first exhilarating in a semi-autobiographical way (it feels like a call-back in small part to 8 1/2 again, but more fractured) and then terrifying as him becomes basically the circus exhibit for an audience of women (maybe the same from before) to ogle and throw things at.In short, it's following Fellini, his alter-ego, and an entire cadre of gorgeous, funny, squealing, maternal, horrifying, garish, sexy, possessed and, of course, uncontrollable women in a spectacle that only sometimes takes itself seriously, which is enough to make its points about how, deep down, some of the feminist movement - when it takes itself too seriously - is apt for mockery..
I could have fallen in love with this film, if only the end had been consistent with the rest of the movie.
Although I have recently watched some of Fellini's most famous films, after seeing this one, I drew a conclusion that CITY OF WOMEN can hardly be compared to any other movie from the Italian director.
Since hardly any of Fellini's works leads us so intensely into the director's surreal world, into a tunnel of his erotic fantasies and lustful desires.
At hardly any other moment, Fellini appeared to create such a satire on society, on decadence, on contradictions as well as on the established order like "the institution of the family." Moreover, Fellini seldom got as erotic as here, and strangely as critical of women.
Yet, despite all the diverse characteristics of the movie, can CITY OF WOMEN be called a valuable work?
Because of its ambiguous nature, this film is for the minority of movie buffs and, moreover, it does not appeal to all Fellini buffs.
But not all characters are female characters since, according to an alleged proverb "these are men whose minds are absorbed by sex." There are two men in CITY OF WOMEN: the main character Snaporaz (Marcello Mastroianni) and his opposite counterpart Katzone (Ettore Manni).
Here, there isn't much to say about the content and character development except for one thing: what their sexual life is...However, that superiority of depravity in CITY OF WOMEN does not mean that there are no similarities with other Fellini movies.
After all, it is still Fellini in CITY OF WOMEN.
It is, first of all, Snaporaz who, like Guido in 8 1/2 (in both Marcello Mastroianni) copes with the madness of the world that surrounds him and tries to figure out his inner self.
The feminists remind me of the group of people visiting Giulietta and girls driving cars in trance of Marcello's friends in LA DOLCE VITA.Felliniesque nature of the movie is resembled in a reality blended with a fantasy.
That is something Fellini could do very well and he does not reject it in CITY OF WOMEN.Yet, at the end of my comment, let me come back to the question I asked at the beginning: is CITY OF WOMEN a valuable film, something you watch and are bound to remember?
Yes, CITY OF WOMEN indeed leads us into the tunnel of lustful fantasies.
Although there are a couple of scenes that drag on too long and some special effect errors, this film is yet another Fellini classic.
I would say that this film is almost as good, but not as good as 8 1/2.You will laugh harder than you ever have before at a Fellini movie.