Before belly-flopping into what will be the Green Bay Packers most “interesting” season in years following all the Aaron Rodgers off-season drama and an 0-3 preseason in which the offense was mostly non-existent, I’m going to do a couple more film overviews. While I do enjoy classic Hollywood films from the past (not so much of the current variety), I find foreign films more “adventurous,” and that is certainly the case with the film I’m going to watch today. While I don’t regard myself as a huge fan of Italian director Federico Fellini, Nights of Cabiria is one of my all-time favorite films, and it was frustrating waiting for the Criterion Collection to get around to releasing a Blu-ray edition. Well, it did, finally, but on the 15-disc “Essential Fellini” box set, which had a “suggested” retail price of $250. I waited until Amazon cut it to $125 before deciding to purchase it, and it arrived with half the discs dislodged from their cardboard sleeves.
But we are not going to look at any of the titles in that set. Incomprehensibly, one of Fellini's was most fascinating—and certainly most controversial—films was not considered “essential.” That is 1980’s City of Women. This is one of those films that has to be seen to be believed, because a simple review doesn’t do justice to the “experience.” There is something here to offend just about everyone, yet on the other hand the audience will be equally split on what parts they will nod in agreement with. On the surface this film appears to be a satire on radical feminism, but Fellini doesn’t let the men off the hook so easily. The film also has that typical Fellini surrealism as it follows star Marcello Mastroianni through a nightmare world in which with only great reluctance does he learn anything from the experience.
Over the opening credits there is a pleasant piano piece suggesting something inoffensive and romantic; a woman’s voice playfully intones “With Marcello, again?” We then see Snaporaz (Mastroianni) sleeping in a train compartment.
There is also a mystery woman in sunglasses and a Russian hat who remains nameless (Bernice Stegers) and is looking at him with a bit of a smirk on her face.
Snaporaz is awakened by the bumping train. He looks at the woman wondering why she keeps looking at him and smiling. Is she interested in him? She gets up and leaves. What “super buns,” he says to himself. He decides to follow her. He finds her in a restroom putting on lipstick, with a look that indicates that she was expecting him. He is obviously infatuated with her sexually, and she does nothing to dissuade his fantasies about her. She is twice divorced, suggesting that her former husbands could not satisfy her. Can he do better? Snaporaz insists he can, but in a can-you-top-this demonstration the woman offers her tongue in a kiss.
But before they get very far into it the train suddenly stops, and the woman tells him that this is her station. Snaporaz can’t help himself as he follows her off the train, and as it leaves without him, he follows the woman through a field that seems to lead nowhere.
When Snaporaz catches up to her she warns him to go back to the train station; there is nothing for him where she is going, but he cannot control his desire. Seeing that she can’t get rid of him, the woman seemingly obliges with some more sexualized banter, although she is clearly not only in control—she tells him she will “eat him alive"—but in fact seems to be a bit contemptuous of him.
She offers to give him a great kiss if he closes his eyes, but when Snaporaz opens his eyes she is gone. He wonders why he acts like a “silly boy” at his age. He walks about aimlessly until he encounters what looks like some kind of camp or hotel where there is loud shouting from inside.
There are a few men present, but they appear to be hotel clerks. It seems to be a women’s convention, and someone wonders if there are “millions” there; it certainly is wall-to-wall women. Someone complains about the furniture; it is all “masculine.” One of the clerks asks the women to stop being rude and tell him what they want one at time, instead of all shouting at him at once.
One woman inquires if Snaporaz is a journalist, because otherwise men are not allowed at the convention; there is at least one person who thinks he doesn't:
Someone complains because there is nobody there who knows how to fix a tape recorder. Snaporaz asks one of the clerks if he has seen a woman in a Russian hat; is he crazy, there is nothing but women here. He may not be an invited guest, but Snaporaz is expected, as we see a woman speaking on a telephone informing someone that he has arrived.
Complaints about men are everywhere to be heard: “You’ve just heard masculine sounds. Unbearable. They only suggest aggressiveness.” Snaporaz, of course, sees and hears only “aggression” from the women who are heard to say that you will only hear “delicate and harmonious sounds” that are “gently and friendly”—humane, “feminine” sounds. However, Fellini obviously has no intention of engaging in such politically correctness.
Snaporaz encounters another woman who warns him to leave while he still can, but he spies the mystery woman and decides to stay. There are discussion groups everywhere; Snaporaz happens into one where the vagina is likened to a sea shell, which the male offends with “humiliating” names. Let us find new names for it, like “tongue of life.”
On the other hand, observe the phony giant phalluses on ancient Greek statues (that isn’t “fake”; when I was in Crete, the Greek “gift shop” across the street from the military base was full of such objects). Of course, sex oppresses women. “We are against penetration. It’s an invasion without defense...Penetration is a crime that should carry a fine of 10 million lira!” Oral sex should also be abolished. There is chanting: “Castration! Castration!” Why must it be with a man? “Masturbation! Masturbation!”
Snaporaz, looking for a way to escape, encounters a few younger women who don’t seem to be angry. He asks them why everyone seems to be so angry; he understands feminism, but is the anger “necessary”? The women accuse him of the “usual male commentary.” He wanders off again, next encountering an enactment of “The Average Housewife,” which is clearly over-the-top but serves the purpose of “oppression.”
Then the “husband” arrives for dinner,
and for “sex.”
After that is a “rare example of feminism inside the family circle,” in which a Mrs. Small arrives to show off her six husbands, all to serve her needs.
More banter about how women are oppressed by men. “Look at this beautiful leg,” says one old woman. “See any veins? Wrinkles are a male invention!” All women are young, beautiful. A succession of non sequiturs meant to imply the women do not need men. All meant to uplift themselves while degrading the “oppressor.”
But then the mystery woman makes an appearance and tells them it is all for naught. “We’ve been deceived once again. Very subtly, true to his style. We were generous and hospitable. Understanding. We spoke, we discussed, we sang, we performed our rites with reserve, in the futile hope of making known to one who cannot, nor wishes to know how much freedom, how much authenticity and love, and life has been denied us. Our efforts here have been useless, sisters. The eyes of that man (pointing at Snaporaz) presently among us with that look of feigned respectability, of one who desires to know us, understand us because he insists that it can better our relationship. And of all his hypocritical excuses, this surely is the basest. Those eyes are the eyes of the male we’ve always known. They reflect his inner derision, his mockery. He has the same rotten core.”
She continues: “We are only a pretext for another of his crude, animalistic fables. Another neurotic song-and-dance act, we’re his hula girls, his fiends. We enhance his show with our passion, with our suffering. I warn this dismal, hollow, worn-out Sultan that we’re neither marionettes nor fiends. We’re of this earth, but not as mere compost, as he would have us. He does not know us, nor wants to, and that is his fatal error. While we’ve been shut up in his harem, or isolated in our respective ghettos, we’ve had the time to study him. To observe this keeper of ours. Our Lord! We know you well! Everything about you. You’re a marionette, the fiend! look at him! He hides. You can’t hide! Your number is up.”
Snaporaz tries to defend himself: “Look, I’ll tell them everything about the train and how you…” Before he can finish, the mystery woman displays photographs she took of him: “Look sisters! In close-up.”
He tells them to “Go to hell!” while vacating the room.
Snaporaz may have escaped from one scene, but over the loudspeaker the attendees are told “Attention! A male lurks among us and listens to what we say. He steals our words. He records them only to deform their meaning. He’s a spy. We must stop him. Find him. Corner him. Throw him out.”
A gang of women converges on him, when a laughing young woman named Donatella calls to him to come with her inside an elevator.
She seems to take an inordinate amount of interest in his “safety.” She and her unimpressed friend take him to a roller skating rink, where there is various training activities:
Snaporaz is persuaded to put
skates on and awkwardly makes his way to a railing where he is soon surrounded
by women skating. Nervous about their intentions, Donatella obliges by literally showing him
the door,
pushing him toward a side exit that sends him tumbling down a stairs.
There he finds a rather frumpy woman about his age putting coal in a furnace. She offers to take him to the train station after she cleans up; he sits behind her on a motorcycle,
but she doesn’t take him to the station, instead to a farmer’s field and some greenhouses. The woman claims that she needs to pick up some seeds for the stationmaster, and bids Snaporaz to give her a hand with it. He reluctantly follows her, but the sex-starved woman seems to have some other purpose in mind:
Then her old mother shows up, berating her daughter and apologizing to him for her behavior. The old woman tells a girl sitting by the road to show Snaporaz the way to the station. Instead of going down the suggested road, the girl cuts through a cornfield where they eventually encounter her friends sitting in a car; though crowded, they make room for him.
They are soon joined another group of girls on a road trip. It soon becomes dark, it is clear that they are not taking Snaporaz to the train station. The girls listen to contemporary rock music and hop around. The whole scene takes on a surreal quality as a third car of girls shows up driving on the wrong side of the road; they appear to be a little underage. Snaporaz is certainly out of his element with a bunch of drugged-up, rowdy girls who are just playing around with him now.
They arrive near an airport, and one of the girls points a gun at an airplane that is about to land. Snaporaz seizes the gun and throws it aside. Calling the girls “monsters” he gets out of the car and decides to walk. The girls in the three cars now play games with him, alternately following him, then stopping when he confronts them, then following him again.
Becoming frightened, Snaporaz makes his way off-road into a forest where he is startled by the sound of sirens and search lights. There appears a red-haired man with a rifle accompanied by some large dogs.
When he sees it is a man who has intruded, he offers Snaporaz shelter from the “lebishes,” firing blanks into the air to frighten them off, since their car lights can be seen through the trees. He introduces himself as Dr. Zuberkock (Ettore Manni), and he is basically at war with the "lebishes,” who control the district and have demanded he vacate his mansion. He says they keep him awake at night with their chanting during their “lesbos” rites. He points to an old tree that has toppled, but “we”—meaning men—won’t topple.
There are a lot of guns in the place; Zuberkock (a play on words?) admits his passions are guns, horses and women—but women first, and last. He reveals that in this district there are “few of us left”—meaning men—ever since the “invasion” of the lebishes. They have a drink, and a demonstration of an oriental “lamp” that is actually a sex toy.
Zuberkock announces he must get dressed for a party, and Snaporaz wanders about the mansion, eventually encountering a hall that appears to be full of paintings, but when a switch is activated they all are revealed to be images of women with recorded messages of a sexual nature.
Snaporaz “explores” the gallery of fantasy women until he unexpectedly encounters his wife, Elena (Anna Prucnal) in attendance of the party. Elena seems to suspect that it is no “coincidence” they both just happened to show at this party.
Zuberkock appears and invites them to celebrate his “10,000th" conquest. Awaiting them are party guests and a towering “cake” big enough for 10,000 candles. He persuades a guest, apparently a prostitute, to perform an “oriental trick,” which is to suck a small object from the floor into her vagina; this demonstration eventually includes a handful of pearls:
Zuberkock is persuaded to demonstrate his manly prowess by blowing out all the candles, which of course leaves him nearly “toppled.” Recovering himself, he announces what the “celebration” is really about—time to say “farewell” to women; he is “renouncing” all women. After the party guests join him in another room, Snaporaz tries to converse with a drunk Elena, but then encounters another unexpected face, that of Donatella. She just happens to have a traveling sewing kit on her, and offers to repair a loose button. Snaporaz admits that she reminds him of a showgirl he had seen, and she reveals that was her mother. She also tells him he is a “mess,” and he doesn’t understand why she says this.
While Zuberkock is entertaining the guests with his singing, Snaporaz rejoins his wife, and they (or rather, she) have a discussion about her unhappiness and his failure to understand why she is unhappy. She complains that he never treated her like a true friend, or tried to make her smile. He was too busy with other things, like books and crossword puzzles, and suggests that his interest in acupuncture treatments might have been of use for his performance “down there.” Snaporaz doesn’t know what to say about these attacks. You never listen to me, she shouts out.
They have never had a meaningful conversation, Elana tells him. She is his wife; he has his mother to provide “refuge.” Snaporaz tells her that they will get through these “tough times” and grow old together, but Elena tells him she isn’t going to stay with a man who needs his bedpans and whims taken care of.
Elena suggests there is still a chance for them, if they can be young again. Just then a man runs through the room, excitedly announcing that the police have arrived. They are, of course, all women.
The police commandant announces that the party must end, that Zuberkock is to report to the police for supposedly firing at “innocent” school girls, and that one of his dogs was shot for allegedly attacking a police officer, which greatly distresses him. Snaporaz is informed by the frumpy nympho who is also a police officer that because of the intervention of his wife, he won’t be arrested for “mistreating” minors—meaning the girls he had been traveling with earlier. Meanwhile, Elena becomes friendly with another officer and dances with her. Zuberkock has been reduced to kissing a statue of his mother, his “one true love.”
Snaporaz wanders off, encountering an old woman hanging clothes, telling him that a house without a woman is like the sea without a Siren. At that moment lights come on and there appears Donatella and her friend dressed up first as harem girls, then as showgirls, and they invite him to dance with them, in the manner of Fred Astaire like when he was young.
Afterwards he follows them to a bedroom. Snaporaz believes that the Donatella and her friend are going to engage in some sack time with him, but they leave with the appearance of Elena, whose face is made-up in a caricature of make-up to make her look less old.
Elena engages in some exaggerated fake sex, which Snaporaz claims to be too tired to respond to. After they separate to opposite sides of the bed, he senses something coming from underneath the bed, and crawling under it encounters an opening to what appears to be a fairground where several old men have been waiting for him to appear.
He allows himself to be propelled along a huge slide, during which he encounters memories of his past, beginning as a young boy. Each episode has something to do with his curiosity in women and sex, such as this early encounter with an obliging older woman whose skirt he just looked up. Those were the days:
Suddenly everything goes dark and Snaporaz slides into a cage; everywhere a gang of women appear, apparently with the mystery woman in the Russian hat in charge.
Released from the cage, Snaporaz finds himself in the company of other men, who have apparently been found “guilty” of not treating women as they expect, and they are to be punished in some way. He finds himself before some tribunal, where he is obliged to answer “biological” and psychological questions about the sexes, and to “explain” his attitudes toward women: “Have you known the real woman?” “Why do you go prying in a world that escapes you?” “Why did you choose to be male?” “Have you explored your feminine component?” These questions only cause eye-rolling from Snaporaz, and he shows his incomprehension at this “nonsense” by throwing up his hands and spinning around. He admits that he just doesn’t understand what they want from him.
The “charges” are then read to him: He “refuses” to answer various questions, refuses to say why he is here, has no ready answers, he never gives, lends or trusts, he can’t offer a woman true sexual satisfaction, he is guilty of self-indulgence and aloofness, he pities himself, he can’t find a way out. He is afraid of decisions, he is guilty of feeling guilty, takes himself too seriously, he is guilty of “maniacal assophilism,” he cannot commit himself to one woman, etc. etc.
But to everyone’s surprise he is
told he is free to go, perhaps on the instigation of the character played by Silvana
Fusacchia, who the camera for some reason focuses on for more than a few moments; maybe she had taken pity on him, because his non-responses implied a lack of malice or intent.
But since he is “free,” he wants to see what is at the end of the “tunnel” that the other men are afraid to enter. Snaporaz ventures his way into some dark, gray, cavernous structure that is soon populated by a massive audience of women.
Insults are shouted at him, which he says is a waste of time for all of them. When he tells them if they don’t like his head, off it goes; he apparently says something they “approve” of, because suddenly he is pelted with flowers. Toward a misshapen statue of a woman is shouted “Shake her. Break her. Find her. Lose her. Open her. Close her. Love her. Kill her. Remember her. Forget her.”Snaporaz is overcome with something; whether it is “understanding” or not, is not yet clear. No longer threatening, the audience yells out “Go to her! Go to her!” He tosses a red rose back into the audience, which is caught by Donatella, who is wearing a ski mask.
He shouts he will go to her, this ideal woman who does not exist. A woman dressed in a wedding dress is burned in effigy.
He climbs up a ladder “to find her,” although a woman dressed up as Oliver Hardy doesn’t understand why, saying “Poor guy."
Once he reaches the top, Snaporaz finds the old woman who worked at Zuberkock’s mansion, who tells him that she was “betting on him.”
He “won,” and all the women were leaving so that he could enjoy his “victory.” Up above is a huge balloon which appears to be the image of Donatella, his supposed “ideal” woman.
He climbs into the balloon basket and is lifted away in apparent joy. But down below is Donatella, now dressed up like a domestic terrorist. She fires what appears to be a semi-automatic weapon at the balloon, puncturing it so that it starts plummeting to the ground.
But the “ideal” woman really does not exist. Hanging on to the ropes, a woman suddenly “drops in”; in a close up of her eyes, she at first appears young, and then old. Perhaps this is telling Snaporaz that young or old, she is the same woman.
Then Snaporaz awakens back inside the same compartment in the train at the start of the film. This time sitting across him is his wife, Elena, who smiles at him enigmatically.
The look of shock on his face indicates that he doesn’t understand what has just happened.
Was it all just a nightmare? Elena tells him he has been mumbling and moaning for two hours. The only suggestion that it might be "real" is his broken eye glasses, that were also broken in his "dream." Just then the mystery woman arrives to take a seat; she also has a “knowing” smile on her face.
Snaporaz is wondering what is going on, and his wife again looks at him as if she is in on some “joke.” And finally Donatella and her friend come in to take a seat, although they pretend not to notice him.
Snaporaz now smiles to himself; perhaps he has learned a “lesson?”
Snaporaz does not understand the anger and the hate he sees and hears. He doesn’t really live by any “natural” law, he just does his own thing without regard to the feelings of other people—especially his wife. Perhaps he just didn't believe he was doing anything "wrong," or wanted to know he was so. Fellini doesn’t let men off so easily, however. In fact, the behavior of both the women and the school girls later on suggests that they are acting as men would when together, and Snaporaz is being served some of his “own.” His “ideal” woman was only a physical fantasy as well, and Donatella’s “showgirl” was just an act and not the “real” person—whose apparent friendliness was only the set-up for a hard fall. But again, whether or not he actually deserved all of the abuse he endured is a question. After all, the mystery woman on the train (or in his "dream") essentially set him up. Yet we can also speculate that the “dream” was in fact “reality,” if we speculate that after his balloon was shot down, he lost consciousness and was taken back to the train. Perhaps she colluded with Elena to make him more understanding of her unhappiness with their present life together.
Of all of Fellini’s films, City of Women is probably the most visually mesmerizing. One is constantly bombarded with imagery meant to excite a range of reactions. There is something to “enhance” understanding, empathy, frustration, vexation or just plain confusion, the latter which is Snaporaz’s principle occupation. From the perspective of a female viewer of the film, this is all so “true,” but most men will sympathize with Snaporaz’s journey. They are not that “bad,” are they? Most men are not, but is there something to be gained from just “hearing them out”? Perhaps Snaporaz has at least learned from this experience that he should learn to “listen” to and treat his wife as a fellow human being who has the same needs as he does. Or he will at least sleep on it.
One thing seems certain on viewing the film today: in its own time, Fellini may been accused of being over-dramatic, but today in the hyper-genderized environment we live in (especially in the "MeToo" movement and "cancel culture") it has become rather "prophetic."
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