Lorna Irvine reviews this love letter to Rome that's filled with 'moments of magic'.
Paolo Sorrentino's ravishing follow-up to 2011's This Must Be The Place is mired in corruption and decadence, holy relics and indecent rollicking.
Stylistically, it is a Baroque homage to Fellini and Pasolini, with a soupcon of Baz Luhrmann in the extended dance sequence at the opening, from which the central character, 65 year old birthday 'boy' writer Jep (a wonderful Toni Servillo) emerges like the cat with the cream, sporting a shit-eating grin.
As the camera moves around the nightclubs and palatial houses of Rome (like a voyeuristic, mercurial silent character) there is a plethora of typically European film motifs as its unblinking focus: religion; philosophy, the ageing process, grief and masculine sexuality.
Although much of the film serves the male gaze, three of Jep's friends and some of the strongest supporting characters are women. The first, damaged ageing stripper (aren't they all?) Ramona, movingly portrayed by Sabrine Ferelli, bares her soul as well as body to Jep and the two have a tentative, unlikely friendship despite the age gap, culminating in a significant scene where he takes her to a late-night viewing at an art gallery, effectively contrasting her own titillating sexualised nudity with the more graceful old masters' take on the female form.
The second, Liza Minnelli lookalike dwarf Dadina (Giovanna Vignola) is Jep's editor and shares some wonderfully witty exchanges with him. She is wise and always alert, never judging.
Finally, Stefania (Galatea Ranzi) is a radical writer, locked in intellectual battles with Jep, berating him for never growing up. He responds by launching into a brutal attack against her beliefs, but adds that they have each failed in some way—horribly astute, proving he sees the emptiness of their nihilism.
Indeed, it is when the pace slows, that there are some staggering sequences: sacrificial nuns, a child manipulated into creating conceptual art, bizarre Botox parties and somewhat incongruously, a giraffe in an ornate room.
The tone is at its strongest when dealing with Jep's introspection and a melancholic, haunting wave washes over the film, echoing the beautiful choir's score at the beginning. It is here that Sorvillo's performance comes into its own. He is not afraid to cry when a friend tells him his first love has died. His inadequacies begin to eat away at him: his failure to follow up his award-winning book, his fading looks, having to face his twilight years alone.
Yet similarly, there are satirical barbs which surprise. A performance artist who cannot justify her artistic pretension is casually skewered by Jep. There are digs at coke heads and the 'mutton dressed as lamb', both male and female, vanity culture permeating Italy.
For Sorrentino, light and dark can comfortably co-exist, and in spite of wanting to mentally dress many of the women, I found this film to hold many moments of magic. Rome itself is the titular beauty- but so too is the elusive nature of life itself.
The Great Beauty is out now on limited release
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