Worthless and Weak

So I decided, that I would actually use this blog for something, and the first thing that came to mind was movie reviews, as I see a few reviews. So I'm gonna try to start now! (it is entirely possible that I may have already somewhere on this blog tried to do this, but whatever).

Our first movie is Satyricon, directed by famed Italian directed Federico Fellini, based on the Novel of the same name by Petronius.

To summarize the plot would be nearly impossible, perhaps the best one can do is say that a Roman commoner travels around and has adventures, frequently involving sex. As the film more or less follows the book, and as whole chunks of the book are missing, the movie tends to jump around a lot.

If there was one overarching story, or development, or growth of a character, than I missed it; the strength of the film was how the individual scenes were incredibly powerful in their depictions.

The best of these was the dinner party at Trimalchio. In it, Trimalchio (an incredibly rich former slave) entertains dozens (perhaps a hundred) people with extravagant food and exotic dances. It's obvious that the host has no actual human relationships, and that throwing parties where sycophantic guests praise him merely to get some small piece of his wealth, is the closest he can get to real human contact. The party ends with a mock funeral for Trimalchio, which is perhaps the most striking in the film. Trimalchio pretends to die, and then all of his guests pretend to mourn for him, and he rewards some of them with gold. This is what Trimalchio had to do to feel good about himself, pretend to die in order to hear how much people would miss him. Pathetic.

This is contrasted by a pair of last wills from a poet named Eumolpus. The first is when he thinks he is going to die, and leaves to his friend Encolpius (who despite not having been mentioned yet, is in fact the main character). The poet has nothing, so he leaves Encolpius with the stars, and the sky, and the sea, and the earth.

The movie ends with Eumolpus' actual death, after attaining great riches. In this will, he leaves his fortune to a group of men, provided that they devour his flesh, just as they sent his soul to hell. The film's final shot is this group of people cannibalizing their "friend" in order to receive their inheritance. While it is not said, clearly the first inheritance, which was nothing (the stars, the sky, etc), was worth much more than horrible second one.

Perhaps the rest of the movie is as good as those scenes, its entirely possible (likely) that I'm missing a lot, however, having watched it once, the movie has left me with no desire to watch it again. If the movie had a more coherent narrative to draw the viewer in, or some reason other than sheer determination for the viewer to continue, it would be much easier for one to catch all the good stuff. But I suppose that if the movie had a more coherent narrative, it would have been a different movie.

Labels: Movie reviews