For all I know, the real Rome is a place where people frown over spreadsheets all day, then retire at 9:30 after a nice cup of decaf and an episode of “NCIS.” But I much prefer to think of the Eternal City as it shimmers in “The Great Beauty,” a land of knife-throwers and dwarves and epic parties and crumbling majesty.
The film by Paolo Sorrentino (“Il Divo”) is a Fellini-esque carnival of wonders as observed by a jaded 65-year-old writer (Toni Servillo) re-reading his own life with wry regret. His only book, written in the throes of youth, was a masterpiece, but in middle age, he stepped down into mere journalism, blaming “the whirlpool of the high life.”
When he discovers that an old girlfriend from 40 years ago died, he wonders why she finally rejected him.
Replete with strange wonders, this haunting work, Italy’s official entry for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, is a sardonic reflection on today’s pretention (“I feel Pirandello-esque lately,” someone says) balanced against a languorous sorrow for things that are lost. There’s an exhilarating sadness to it all that amounts to cinematic poetry.