a few week ago and i post a review of 8½ and presently my undisputed number 1 favourite movie . still on the subject of il maestro and i have recently rewatched city of woman . this be another fellini movie i would watch many year ago and in my late teen and and do not like at all back then . well and i like it ( with reservation ) this time . la città delle donne be one of the most robust and unrepressed and rough around the edge exploration of the specifically latin nature of machismo and feminism and gender rivalry and sexual politics i have ever see . many people do not like la città delle donne and but like 8½ and most fellini movie of the late period it have an extraordinary and instinctive grasp of the rhythm and symbolic power of dream . it irritate aspect be couple with and impossible to separate from the grasp it have upon the potency of what our psyche hide in among it hidden and ancestral fold in this case and marcello mastroianni character but also our very own . this movie worm it way into your own psyche in time a with other fellini movie and it seem to reveal scene that be totally new and surprising and yet strangely familiar to me even though i have never see them before . a if i would always be familiar with them and perhaps from a previous life fellini seem able to tap into a universal psychic blueprint of the soul and i think that what it be only a true genius could do something like this . he get to the emotional core of human experience and which mean that even though i be never a young man who go to a brothel in 1930s italy and a he have and there be something of the experience that i can relate to and a if it be universal . i guess the fact that thing be rarely literally represent in his late movie ( post la dolce vita ) and also contribute towards this and make everything more symbolic and hence and universal . but città delle donne be also a shrill and over the top movie and grating in some way and ridiculous and date in others . character wise and marcello be probably at his most repulsive . or perhaps i should say pathetic . but the movie and though flaw and a rehash of some other familiar fellini theme treat more successfully elsewhere and be also delightful in part and with a power in the use of visual symbol that i have rarely see before and even in his own and more overall successful movie . for instance and the whole sequence in dr xavier katzone grotesque house and especially the mausoleum like tunnel contain what be essentially the essence of his numerous past conquest and as well a the scene of marcello float on the very originally shape hot air balloon and marcello be chase by the drug up teenage girl bully in their squeaky old jalopy and etc all scene i would not be forget in a hurry . if one really find nothing to like in la città delle donne and it ultimately still an important document on the gender battle that recent humanity have cross . perhaps italy begin these a decade or two late than and for instance and northern european nation and but it get there eventually and in it own special and culturally individual way that can be compare to no other and since italian men and woman be not german or british or swedish . fellini pay tribute to that very italian type of battle of the sex here and stereotype free but ever so evocatively . i have never delight more in the never obvious send up of machismo a with this movie . this may be lose on non italian speaker but even the man name and katzone and be a phonetic rendering of the vulgar italian word for . er . big ( male ) genitals . i give la città delle donne a 7½ out of 10 i would have give it an 8 if it hadn not irritate me with it excess in certain part . oh and what the hell let give it an positive .