Much like Jep Gambardella, the protagonist of the sumptuous Italian Oscar winner “The Great Beauty,” we’ve seen a lot of parties in the movies, and it’s getting harder to impress. The one Paolo Sorrentino throws at the start of “The Great Beauty” though is certainly electric. It comes immediately after a spiritual reverie of an opening with the camera gliding over Roman fountains as choir girls echo in the background, so the blaring EDM and affronting sexuality that come next definitely come as a shock.
But it is at this moment Sorrentino quite literally turns the movie on its head to show just how absolutely delirious, rich and brilliant this film is. The camera rotates upside down and the celebration rages on, the wealthy and privileged of the high society now as high as they can go with no sign of coming down.
“The Great Beauty” is a colorful, vibrant, intellectual and aloof treat, a Fellini for the 21st Century and art classic for the ages. And yet it is also a devastating, powerful piece of cinema, bold and brash in its style and incisive to the lifestyle it depicts. It could fit along with 2013’s “Gatsby”, “The Wolf of Wall Street” and “The Bling Ring” as a have-more movie, but Sorrentino goes farther by challenging the notion of having it all without ever having to bring us down. Continue reading “The Great Beauty”