Amarcord

Amarcord is probably one of my all-time favourite movies. Fellini, in the 70s, presents a year in the life of a little village in fascist Italy. There are many stories and many characters, each of which represents a different aspect of Fellini's Italy.

I came across this review at the Criterion Collection by Rodarte, a sister fasion desiner duo:

"This movie is almost a complete inversion of Louis Malle’s Au revoir les enfants, where the horrors of Vichy France are made all the more terrible juxtaposed to the innocence and ideal of youth. Here, you have the violence of Mussolini and terror of Fascist Italy completely erased by the antics of a bunch of horny teenagers. This film is visually gorgeous; the scene where the peacock flies in the snow always stays in mind. What makes this film so interesting is the notion that idealized beauty is not enough—visual beauty is grounded by the humanity and sometimes fallibility of the characters."

I have to disagree that the point of the film is to erase "the violence of Mussolini and terror of Fascist Italy". The father is questioned and abused as a communist anti-fasc and Fascism is so present that one of the boys has a marriage fantasy wherein Mussolini himself presides over the ceremony! He further mocks the Fascisism in other scenes of movie by showing us the absurdity of the times. This is of course set against the present times when the film was released.