Tonight in class we watched the movie 8 ½, directed in 1963 by Federico Fellini. I enjoyed this wonderful movie but found it confusing at times and hard to understand. Indeed, I thought this film was interesting in part because I have not had a Spanish class in several years but was still able to understand some of the Italian, which was at times close to Spanish in the film. Fortunately, by the end of the film I was much more knowledgeable and able to put pieces of the story together that I had not understood throughout the movie.

         In 8 ½ Guido (Marcello Mastroianni) experiences multiple dreams and practically makes a screen play of his life. This film was interesting because it touches an interesting topic with dreams; because dreams are so complex; and, because this film is different from any movie I have ever seen, I enjoyed it more. Guido is a man that loved women, and had several women in his life, but could not be fully with them. Guido has dream sequences where every woman is a slave. The women in the film are not portrayed as everyday individuals but instead as women who are there to make others, like him, happy. Guido’s character seemed to be very complex; at several times during the movie I found myself thinking his character was a creep.

         Throughout the movie I wondered if Guido would get his life back on track because I felt that his character was based solely on his dreams and that was his “life.” However, I felt that, by the end of the movie Guido had gotten his life back together and was growing out of a negative aspect of his life. As he does this, I felt relief for his character, and several parts of the movie, in which Guido’s life had seemed cluttered and jumbled, began to play out in my mind. I appreciated the monologue at the end of the film, which tied together the disparate parts of his life.

         I enjoyed this movie, 8 ½, because it seemed different from other movies that I have seen. Although it was hard for me to understand at times, it seems like the ending helped to tie the movie together in such a way that the story finally made sense.