La Dolce Vita opens with a telling image,pure in its symbolism yet entirely mechanical in fact: a helicopter isseen flying over Rome carrying a gigantic statue of Christ to St.Peter's Cathedral. "Oh, look," remarks a woman sunbathingbelow, "there's Jesus. Where's he going?" Fellini creates arich, intricate tapestry of "Rome, the Babylon of my dreams"in La Dolce Vita. Juxtaposition and composition are finely tuned toexude an air of randomness. The episodic narrative follows a jadedjournalist, Marcello (Mastroianni), on an odyssey in search of himselfamid the decadent, dehumanized beauties of Rome's glitterati."Whither Jesus?" is a question, perhaps addressed, perhapsdismissed in several witty set pieces, from Anita Ekberg's visit to St.Peter's wearing a tight-fitting curé's habit, to Marcello and hispoker-faced compatriots finding a dead fish, with its enormous open eye,on the beach. In Italy, Catholics were forbidden to see La Dolce Vita,but in the world on which Fellini, former journalist, files his report,there are more scenes of quick and real pathos than there are orgies.