Movie review: Fellini goes home in classic 'Amarcord'

We will, no doubt, get our share of Federico Fellini between now and Christmas -- with the prestigious release of "Nine," the all-star musical version of Fellini's classic "8 1/2."

Short of renting the original "8 1/2" at your local video store (which is highly recommended), the best way to brush up on your Fellini is to check out the re-release of the master's kaleidoscopic 1973 film "Amarcord," a fond depiction of the Italian town where Fellini spent his formative years.

The movie is set in Rimini, a seaside Italian town, in the early 1930s. It begins in the spring, when the cottonwoods are in bloom. "When the puffballs soar, winter's no more," they say in Rimini, as the people prepare for the annual spring bonfire

-- just one of the signposts of the changing seasons in this year-in-the-life reminiscence.

Much of life in Rimini is seen by Titta (Bruno Zanin), a teen schoolboy who is the stand-in for Fellini in youth. Titta isn't the main character, though. In fact, no one character is dominant. It's Rimini itself Fellini is profiling, the town's rhythms and moods, and the interplay of the people who live there.

There is the school, where rebellious students pull pranks on the clueless teachers. There is the church, where Titta goes to confession and thinks about all the impure thoughts he's not going to divulge to the priests. There are the Fascist rallies, where the kids drill impressively and a pint-size Il Duce shows up to fulminate.

And there is family, where Papa (Armando Brancia) and Mama (Pupella Maggio) argue loudly but still look out for each other.

This being Fellini, there are, of course, women. Besides Mama, there are the sex-crazed prostitute Volpina (Josiane Tanzilli) and the buxom tobacconist (Maria Antonietta Beluzzi) who holds every schoolboy's fantasies within her tight sweater. But Titta's object of infatuation is Gradisca (Magali' Noel), the town's hairdresser, who swivels her hips through town as

if leading her own parade.

And, since this is Fellini's recollection, Rimini is a town of storytellers. The town lawyer (Luigi Rossi), the beggar Guidizio (Aristide Caporale) and the street vendor Biscein (Gennaro Ombra) talk to the camera -- each delivering conflicting anecdotes of the town's history and legends. Some of these stories, like the one about the emir who brought his 30 wives to the Grand Hotel, are springboards for Fellini's most colorful flights of fantasy.

As Fellini exuberantly recalls in "Amarcord" (the title translates, in the local dialect, as "I Remember"), Rimini is a place where life and death, weddings and funerals, are part of the town's fabric. There are no happy endings, or sad ones, either. There is only the continual cavalcade of fascinating people -- the inspiration for so many circus processions for which Fellini was a jolly ringmaster.

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