Fellini's Eight-and-a-half is worth Two Stars

This film is a bore.

Stylistically, eight-and-a-half could be seen as a companion piece to - or even the flipside of - La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini, 1960). But it doesn't contain as much substance and nor does it have as much of a story to tell. It is rather an empty exercise, redeemed in part by the excellent opening dream sequence, the late conversation with (I think) Claudia Cardinale about the inability of a certain character to either love or be loved - "he has given up hope" - and by the insightful comments of the writer/critic about the duty of the artist not to add to the mountain of superfluous media with which the world is already afflicted. But none of this is enough to either justify the film's length or to give it the substance which, I think, it lacks.

As in La Dolce Vita, the central character has lost his faith in the possibility of redemption as represented by the innocence and purity of a girl. In terms of Fellini's oeuvre, therefore, eight-and-a-half has little new to say, and little or nothing in it that cannot be better had from La Dolce Vita.

At a purely superficial level, even the sunglasses, the suits, the sports cars and the scooters were better in La Dolce Vita.