Amazon.com Customer Reviews
 Rated 4 out of 5
Visually Stunning But Disjointed and Sterile
If one rates a film on visuals alone, Fellini’’s SATYRICON would surely be completely off the scale: a phantasmagorical mixture of sensual beauty and the distasteful but evocative grotesque set in an ancient Rome that never was, never could have been, and yet which plays up to every extreme concept we secretly harbor about Roman decadence. The leading men are incredibly beautiful; the women are generally seductively depraved; and the broad vision that Fellini offers is easily one of the visually stunning creations ever put to film.And yet, oddly, the film is sterile. The story is impossible to describe, a series of largely unrelated events in the lives of two impossibly handsome youths (Martin Potter and Hiram Keller) who begin the film by battling over the sexual favors of a slave boy (Max Born) who alternately unites and divides them until all three find themselves sold into slavery and flung from adventure to adventure, most often with sexual (and frequently homosexual) connotations. Clearly, Fellini is making a statement about the triviality and emptiness of a life lived for physical pleasures alone. But the film is jumpy, disjointed, disconnected; the sequences do not always arise from each other in any consistent way, leaving viewers with a sort of "what the ..." reaction when the film unexpectedly shifts without explanation. In consequence, SATYRICON is ultimately less about any philosophical statement Fellini may have had in mind than it is about sheer pictorial splendor and deliberate weirdness. Whatever its failings, it is an astonishing film, and one that would have tremendous influence on a host of directors who followed in Fellini’’s wake--although all to often without his style and vision. Clearly Pasolini, director of such works as SALO, ARABIAN NIGHTS, and CANTERBURY TALES spent the better part of his largely unlamented life trying to out-Fellini Fellini; likewise, it is impossible to imagine how Tinto Brass and Bob Guccione arrived at the notorious CALIGULA without reference to Fellini’’s SATYRICON. Such efforts to expand on SATYRICON were merely more explicit and less interesting than the original, and I do not really recommend them--nor do I really recommend SATYRICON for any one other than Fellini fans, for with its oddly disjointed feel it is unlikely to please those raised on mainstream. Still, it is a powerful, remarkably beautiful, and completely unexpected film that must be seen at least once by any one with a serious interest in world cinema, and to those I recommend it without hesitation. --GFT (Amazon.com Reviewer)--  Rated 5 out of 5!
The Ultimate Freak Show, done by the Master
Fellini has a unique gift for visuals, and uses the human oddities the way a great master painter uses his paints; lavishly and always to great effect. When the movie was being cast, there were long, long lines of the most unusual and the most freakish people in Italy; this made for a fascinating spectacle and was in itself, a show. No one has Fellini’’s eye, and this is most evident in Satyricon, IMHO his best movie. The most striking and unusual image presented is the albino hermaphrodite; the fact that Fellini was even able to find this extreme human oddity is a feat in itself, and presents a truly unique and unforgettable image on the big screen. You literally cannot take you eyes off the screen for one second; you cannot afford to miss anything, all is pertinent, all is fascinating and all is integral to the "show" Fellini wanted to present and succeeds brilliantly. No circus, no sideshow in history can hold a candle to the ultimate showman and visual storyteller. Don’’t try to analyze; don’’t try to "read" into anything, just sit back and enjoy and allow the images to take you on an unforgettable journey. P.T. Barnum would be green with envy...or applaud w
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