Film review: Le notti di Cabiria (Nights of Cabiria) (Fellini, 1957) – the sadness behind the powerful smile

Federico Fellini redefined what a good movie should look like – what it should feel like with Le notti di Cabiria (1957.) Every tear you have ever cried seems insignificant in comparison to those of our heroine, Cabiria. We will regret every bit of hope we have ever put in humanity when we are confronted with the cards she has been dealt. This movie is a powerful statement about carrying on, no matter how bad it gets. No matter how ugly the industry, how wicked the the world, you just gotta shine on. Giulietta Masina is both the perfect darkness and the perfect sun.

Watchlist Roulette

Do you ever look at your watchlist and get nauseous with the realization that you probably won’t be able to watch all of them within the next 5 years? Maybe you won’t even get around to watching some of them.. ever. That is both depressing and uplifting. It means there are so many movies that caught your eye and that you want to watch that you’ll be set for a lifetime. Usually when I’m bored on the train I’ll scroll through my watchlist and make a mental map of when I’ll watch each movie. Then I turn around and watch a completely different movie. In this post I want to feature a few movies from my watchlist so that I can hopefully inspire you and myself and maybe gain some watching tips.

À bout de souffle (Breathless) Film review (Godard, 1960) & Nouvelle Vague

When the name Jean Luc Godard is uttered, this never goes without praise. He played an important part in the emerging of the French New Wave (Nouvelle Vague) and therefore his name is among the list of directors that you need to have seen one or two films of if you want to count in film discourse. My first Godard was Le Mépris (3,5*) followed by Vivre sa vie (4*). Today I want to write about arguably his most important film, À bout de souffle.

Le Rayon Vert (1986) – A tale of women and loneliness

I’ve checked off my first Éric Rohmer movie with this one. Another director of whom I had movies on my watchlist for a while. I think I’ve had A Summer’s Tale (Conte d’été) on there the longest and I still haven’t watched it. This plot sounded a little more interesting to me at the moment of picking a movie and I’m glad I did watch this melancholic tale of loneliness. The grim mood of the protagonist Delphine is compensated for by the beautiful sceneries of Paris, Cherbourg, the Alps & Biarritz.

Put the blame on Mame ~ ‘Gilda’ movie review (Charles Vidor, 1946)

The glamour in classic Hollywood movies make me dizzy with nostalgia to a world I probably wouldn’t have liked to be in. Yet I still romanticize the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s precisely because of the beautiful movies that were made back then. Though I’m not unaware of the problems in those movies, especially as a feminist. Women are either femme fatales and serve solely as a catalyst for the downfall of a man or serves merely as an accessory and can be replaced by a lamp. A few weeks ago I’ve finally watched Gilda and through her being constantly pushed into a femme fatale box by her ex-lover Johnny she eventually starts to see herself as nothing more than that. Yet the movie offered a raw portrayal of what this label does to those women in question rather than zoom in on how the men are disadvantaged by those women. The movie is also an ode to all the female actresses that completely outshone the male character & a plea for more female characters in movies. Because damn it, did Ford’s acting pale in comparison to that of the magnificent Rita Hayworth.