it's a movie about someone who's trapped himself in a corner because he's selfish and cowardly and yet tries desperately to keep everybody happy, and he escapes into self-serving fantasies rather than deal plainly with all the people he's dragged into his own mess. Claudia Cardinale appears out of nowhere, seemingly in answer to Guido's manic-pixie-dream-girl fantasy about a perfect woman who will somehow heal all his problems and make everything right, and she smiles a bright-eyed smile and with a few sentences she grinds Guido's Beatrice fantasy into the dirt. "you're just like all the others," Guido laments, but it's no good; his balloon's been punctured, and his grand vision evaporates into a cloud of shame and debts, leaving only a thin residue of farce.
we feel uncomfortably called out. we feel like our own life has been futile and ruled by self-serving fantasies, and we're at least as avoidant of people (and of unpleasantness) as Guido Anselmi. and we had our own Beatrice fantasy, once. maybe more than once.
maybe I don't know how to love, either.
bleh.
~Chara