Fellini a Cleveland

Fellini Satyricon (Italy/France, 1969) Pity the fools raised on Gladiator or 300 who go to Federico Fellini’s “free adaptation” of the ancient writings of Petroneus expecting something remotely similar, though there are bits that seem to anticipate the later Caligula. Setting of the pageant-like narrative is the Roman Empire at its most corrupt and pagan. In a rambling narrative (that, for the Fellini novice, can feel eons long) a stud named Encopius, a young, blond, bisexual, handsome and a would-be poet and “educated” man, careens from one disaster to another: he loses his androgynous boy-lover to a treacherous frenemy; he’s sold into slavery; he has to fight the Minotaur; and he suffers a bout with impotence. This last is evidently the worst possible fate, given the overriding grotesque decadence. Encopious is a little like the character Candide except with no particular character, leaving the viewer with nightmare-memorable backdrops (many of the sets, even outdoor ones, plainly theatrical artifice) , creepy Barbarella B.C. costumes and leering faces and occasional deformities. The obvious temptation for modern eyes is to link Fellini’s pan-sexual, painted, prancing freaks with the offscreen flower-children, psychedelic fashion and drugged-up free-love hippies then prevalent in the late 1960s (which is just about as ancient history), and that’s probably as fair an explanation as any. At 9:20 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 5, and 3:45 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 5. ** 1/2 (Charles Cassady Jr.)