Marcello Mastroianni: I Remember

Rating:
Summary: You'd better be a Mastroianni fan
Review: If you enjoyed MM's work, there is no better film than this, with extended monologues by MM intercut with scenes from his films. (The stories about the one he made with his brother were really cool). Lots of talk about his contemporaries, but the best parts are his musings on life and art; you really wish you could have known him as a person. On the down side, it is pretty long and the subtitles are often washed out during the b/w sequences. I watched over two nights.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful, but get comfortable.
Review: You get the feeling watching this documentary that there was too much good content, too many stories, too many insights into Marcello, the man, the actor, the lover, the romantic, that a shorter film would have proved impossible. Clocking in just over 3 hours in length, "Marcello Mastroianni: I Remember" is the perfect retrospective of Mastroianni that any fan of his would truly adore. As charming in person as he was on screen, Marcello is relaxed, reflective, and takes his time telling vivid stories about the directors he worked with, the women in his life, and a considerable amount about the cities he's visited and the random people therein that haunt his memory. With over a hundred films on his resume, and a life most people can only dream of, the pace of the documentary is satisfyingly slow, and allows Marcello to reveal himself more openly. He sits and chats on his boat, in his Paris penthouse, in the backseat of a car winding through the mountains, in outdoor cafes -- anyplace he feels comfortable. It's so satisfying to see an actor laugh at himself, and still draw an artful smile when thinking about all the small, wonderful details in his life. In a way, this is Marcello's goodbye to his fans, for he died a year before this film was released. With that, I'm more than willing to give Marcello a little time to tell his story. A must see for fans of his work, as well as fans of the directors he's worked with, most notably Fellini.