Marcello Mastroianni is surprisingly lackluster as Snàporaz in Federico Fellini’s extravagant, tedious La città delle donne, which Fellini once described as his most dreamlike film. The dream is a nightmare, out of which Snàporaz tries to escape once launching it by getting off a train in pursuit of a shapely, sophisticated woman in a fur hat. (A “gorgeous cow” is how he describes her.) Snàporaz thus finds himself at a conference of feminists; the one guy there and no feminist, Snàporaz hears penetration referred to as “invasion” and sees a suspended male dummy being kicked in the testicles. (Snàporaz chats with the girl who took the prize for delivering the best kick.) Snàporaz finds himself at the center of a roller-skating line of females; at first he is delighted, but he comes to feel that it is all at his expense. He feels mocked.
Snàporaz does manage to exit this confinement, but (after being rescued from imminent rape by the aggressive woman’s mother) winds up in a mansion in the midst of a party: Dr. Xavier Zuberkock, an aging Casanova, is celebrating the 10,000th—and last—notch to his bedpost. Elena, Snàporaz’s weepy longtime girlfriend or wife (recall Marcello’s Emma in La dolce vita?), also turns up. Soon after, the all-female police force is leveling a slew of charges against Snàporaz, including not being able to commit to one woman and preferring the dark side of the moon.
Snàporaz doesn’t always “get it.” He wants to touch the darting tongue from the Japanese mask on Zuberkock’s wall, but Zuberkock recommends instead he let it into his ear. Incidentally, Zuberkock’s hallway centerpiece is a bust of Mom on a pedestal.
Much of the satire of male alarm falls flat. Giuseppe Rotunno’s color cinematography is great.
Dennis Grunes 