City of Women (Italian: La città delle donne) is a 1980 fantasy comedy-drama film directed by Federico Fellini, who co-wrote it with Bernardino Zapponi and Brunello Rondi.
[2] Amid Fellini's characteristic combination of dreamlike, outrageous, and artistic imagery, Marcello Mastroianni plays Snàporaz, a man who voyages through male and female spaces towards a confrontation with his own attitudes towards women and his wife.
A frightened Snàporaz retreats to the hotel lobby, but the exit is blocked; instead, he seeks refuge inside an elevator with a young woman, Donatella, who offers her assistance.
Taking pride in his many inventions, Katzone celebrates his 10,000th conquest with an eccentric party that involves the blowing out of 10,000 candles and a performance by his wife, in which she sucks coins and pearls into her vagina by means of telekinesis.
Hearing strange noises, he crawls under the bed, entering another dreamlike world in which he slides down a toboggan, revisiting his childhood crushes (including a sitter, a nurse, and a prostitute) along the way.
Or when the ambiguity of certain characters - an excellent example is the soubrette played by the charming Donatella Damiani - provides a touch of grace and bitchiness; or when the film becomes almost a musical; or when paradox becomes surrealist, such as the party and the hurricane at the villa of Katzone who's in despair because his favourite dog has died".
[6] La Notte magazine's Giorgio Carbone felt the maestro had "finally reached a splendid maturity that permits him to lavish his treasures upon us for the simple pleasure of doing so.
"[10] Patrick Gibbs of The Daily Telegraph wrote that "the once exciting Italian director, Federico Fellini, has long been in deep decline, at least to my taste; and his latest film City of Women,, shown at the Cannes Festival of 1980, is typical of his later work in that the illustration is often superb but the ideas infantile.
"[12] Philip French of The Observer called it "an endless series of glittering, often vulgar, set-pieces at the service of a characteristic piece of confessional analysis that for all its theatrical flair remains a pretty childish exercise.
"[13] Susie Eisenhuth of The Sun-Herald wrote that "apart from the fact that feminists come in for a bit of a drubbing, the film, having dabbled with a more interesting approach to its subject, fall's back on a series of predictable set pieces based on well-charted male fantasies.
But as a fantasy it is often beautiful and sets the imagination going, and as a confession it should give you a charitable fellow-feeling, a warm glow or superiority, or an occasional therapeutic flush of anger.
The brilliant Fellini is the director who has looked into the past in fresh ways, as with 'I Vitelloni' and 'The Clowns,' and 'Amarcord,' who worked with what he knows best his homeland of Italy and the people there, as with 'La Strada,' and 'Roma' and 'Nights of Cabiria.'
Desmond Ryan of The Philadelphia Inquirer said that "at the conclusion of Fellini's 138-minute collage of dreams and sexual fantasies, Marcello Mastroianni imagines himself suspended in the basket of a giant balloon that is shaped like a voluptuous woman.
Much of what precedes this rather whimsical ending has the substance of hot air, and that is a keen disappointment, since City of Women begins with every sign of having something to say about the impact of feminism on relations between the sexes.
"[22] Candice Russell of the Fort Lauderdale News wrote that "you leave City of Women dazzled by what Fellini hath wrought visually, climaxed by the glittering roller coaster sequence that brings Snaporaz in touch with the sexuality of his boyhood.
"[23] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune called the film "a repetitive, overlong essay on the predicament of modern man confronted by the women's movement.
Inasmuch as you probably knew that walking into the theater, one is left to simply admire and eventually despair of Fellini's signature imagery of grotesque beings and carnival-like commotion.
Fellini has rarely been able to discover human beings hidden inside his female characters, and it's a little late for him to start blaming that on the women's liberation movement."
[25] Donna Chernin of The Plain Dealer wrote that " Fellini takes us on a visually arresting ride that teems with symbolism and colorful characters but which finally proves an unsatisfying trip.
It wasn't a matter of keeping the eyes open—there is plenty of entertaining imagery—the problem is the story, which snakes through Fellini's thicket with more hairpin turns than a European car rally.
It looks like the work of a dirty old man, a nocturnal eruption if you will, and because it is not cheap, because it won't begin to win back the money invested in it, Fellini may have made his last major film.
"[28] Tom McElfresh of The Cincinnati Enquirer described the film as having "events and elements that warrant all the usual Fellini review words again: Macabre, penetrating, illusive, antic, astounding, perverse, playful, acerbic .
"[29] Lawrence Toppman of The Charlotte News wrote that "one thing can be said with certainty about this confusing compendium of images: it ain't whistling a happy tune.
"[31] Robert W. Butler of The Kansas City Star said that the film "has so many conflicting elements—from the aging satyr whose living room is shared by a collection of phallic statuary and a shrine to his mother to the tribunal of women who convict Snaporaz of misunderstanding females—that you can draw any conclusion.
"[32] To Casey St. Charnez of the Santa Fe New Mexican, the film "takes a simple proposition—what if women ruled society?—and turns it into two hours of eye-filling dreck.
"[35] Nancy Scott had a similar opinion, writing in the San Francisco Examiner that Fellini "plays ringmaster to his own psyche like the greatest showman on earth, and that's fun while it lasts.
"[36] Bruce Bailey of the Montreal Gazette commented that "though this may all sound a little too didactic, this two hour and 15 minute movie manages to hold our attention because it's still a fine example of Fellini's imaginative knack at work.
"[42] Joanna Connors of The Minneapolis Star wrote that "Fellini has little new to say about the sexual carnival, but he portrays it with such wit and ferocity that 'City of Women,' though very long, rarely becomes tiresome.
"[43] John V. Hurst of The Sacramento Bee said it was "unsettling, surreal, and typically Fellini in being replete with ephemeral, allegorical allusions that are placed alongside the starkly obvious.
"[49] Joe Pollack of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote that "Fellini overdoes much of the sexual symbolism, and 'City of Women' lingers too long in many scenes, but it's often a lot of fun.