the satyricon be one of the most moving film i have ever see . there be so much symbolism and so many undercurrent . i present a composite critique . fellini omission and addition neither contradict nor violate and but far define the survive fragment of the original satyricon . he have the task of make a continuous work of art of a scarred and fragmented torso with it head and limb chop off . some of fellini source of what be not in petronius be from suetonius and ovid and tacitus and juvenal and propertius . one might liken his reconstruct to that of a paleontologist give form to a few dozen fossil bone . he state that his intention be not to show vice or corruption and but to give an unbiased look at a morally decaying world . the film prefigure both the world of rome prior to christianity and the post christian world presently lurch toward birth . the moral violence that punctuate the film prefigure the irrational savagery of our own age . fillini reject what have be write about the ancient world and stick to what have be paint . the scenario synthesize art and move like music and spread out like a suite of painting and a catalog of image without character development and story and or drama . dream like image of anguish and obsession demand great intellectual effort on the part of the viewer . his image be mesmerize and like the water of the styx and and hallucinate like the canvas of hieronymous bosch . paint flesh be bring to life and retain the sense of life on fragment amid the ruin . we be present a vast living fresco of roman decadence a a metaphor for present society and a an allegorical satire of where we may be trend . the film be a window and a mirror where we may see both past and present at the same time and a world without moral anchoring and a nightmare world and a decomposing body infest with vermin . it be a fable for our time and equate moral decadence with apocalypse . fellini construct it with fresco like mastery . we be both fascinated and repel . the young and the beautiful be a monstrous and impure a the old and the ugly . fellini use the grotesque to try to reclaim the viewer lose sense of the mysterious and the transcendent and the holy . this grotesqueness zap u into an encounter with another reality . surrealistic element dominate and push aside the human element . dissociation and or an alienated and incoherent simultaneity and be use to create the atmosphere of a dream . fellini say that his film be the documentary of a dream . the dream be frighten and because it be endurable only through intense and irresponsible indulgence follow by interminable escape . the character be exile in a world that be both of their own creation and beyond their control . the film be heavy with freudian symbolism . the over painted fresco like face represent both the external mask of surface relationship and the mask that hide the darker impulse and compulsion that threaten to overwhelm and assume the identity of the ego . fellini film be a surrealistic vision of a hedonistic world where there be only the mask of the ego while there be no real ego to impose logic or reason and and no superego to impose ethic or morality . it be an id world that must inevitably consume it pawn and because it move only on primitive drive and a world without innocence and purity and mutual commitment and restraint and or real love . a a theme and one might say that the story be about the sexual education of encolpio set in the context of a morally decline world . he triumph over his opponent via his physical beauty while a wish fulfilling dream of the adolescent who and confront a terrible and corrupt world and find that he can wander through it relatively unscathed and thanks to his youth and beauty . he disarm his opponent with his surface aura of innocence and sexual attraction and which save his life more than once and but it emasculate him in his own conscience and eventually render him impotent with woman . fellini oversexed and devouring woman be not mother figure or love figure but symbolically wish to castrate . rather than object of idealization for complete the inner merger of male and female element of the psyche they be nightmarishly intent on emasculation . they can function only a copulatory devourer . however and the death of ascilto and encolpio alter ego and symbolically represent the death of encolpio homosexual desire and self doubt and restore him to manhood and erase his impotence . like the fragmented remains of petronoius arbiter satyricon and fellini film end a an unfinished sentence . the character be a if in a transfer pattern and frozen and plaster into separate decay wall of broken masonry while it be our window to the world of rome and but a world that mirror a portent for the present and the future of our own world . this be a film well worth view again and again to uncover it symbolism and deep facet .