A panoramic album of impressions in praise of Rome andthe Italians, past, present and future. The film falls into specificepisodes and, it seems, autobiographical memories that aretransmogrified into extraordinary visions of humanity, and the timelessrevolving of old traditions with contemporary desires, ambitions, andfeelings. One sees Fellini's memory conjuring forth the intermingledsanctimony and boyhood roguery of his childhood among the Jesuits (inthe tradition of 8-1/2); a maliciously amusing survey of the silentItalian cinema as it affects a typical bourgeois audience of the 1920s(with the wide-eyed nymphomaniac from Satyricon suddenly wedged betweentwo spectators); and a stunning recreation of Fellini's arrival in Romein 1939, just before the war. Two episodes have been acclaimed asmasterworks: a surrealistic indictment of clerical pomposity, symbolizedby what can only be described as an ecclesiastical fashion show; and adetailed, hilarious reminiscence of a variety show in wartime Rome.Fellini's enormous understanding and sympathy for human beings and theirfrailties pervades the entire film.-Albert Johnson, San FranciscoInternational Film Festival '72