Cinecitta, the huge movie studio outside Rome, is 50 years old and Fellini (Sergio Rubini) is interviewed by a Japanese TV crew about the films he has made there over the years as he begins production on his latest film.Something about Italian cinema... they are really good about making movies about making movies, or often movies with movies within, breaking the fourth wall. This is a bit different, as it is something of a documentary. Except for the fact it is completely fictionalized, beyond the actors who are essentially playing themselves.I do love these sort of films, because it really shows the Italian love of cinema. As an American, I would be silly to deny the dominance of Hollywood, but no American comes to mind as being on the "artist level" of the classic Italians: Fellini, Rossellini, etc.

"Intervista" ("Interview") takes life and movies to an unimagined extent. An nostalgic journey into memory, experiences and life in the way Federico Fellini sees them. And he asks those kind of questions: "What's real in movies? What's real in news and documentaries?". Even more: "What's real in life?" Defying, joking, molding, constructing and deconstructing films and the human existence, Fellini challenges and fascinates viewers through four intertwined segments which echo his work, his art and his early memories when of his arrival at the famous studio Cinecittá, way before of becoming the cinematic author of "Amarcord" and "Satyricon".The movie is composed of showing the behind the scenes of a movie directed by the maestro Fellini; the movie itself (film within the film) and its long and confusing process of shooting; the interview documented by the Japanese crew who hears the director's stories that later are intercut with scenes of a young Fellini (played by the lovable Sergio Rubini) living his first experiences at Cinecittá while interviewing a impressionable film star. They're all mixed into an magical and dreamy imitation of life.But how can one distinguish what's scripted and what's real? You can't. But you can try. The reunion between Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg, 27 seven years later after "La Dolce Vita" is wonderful, almost brings tears to our eyes. But they really kept all this time without seeing each other as they say? Maybe, maybe not, very unlikely but somehow we buy this as a fact. It looks genuine, they're so thrilled and surprised with this event. They play themselves in the movie, watching the characters they played in another Fellini classic, when they were very young. That's the film's magic, to capture both these stars in different situations and periods of life, all captured in a beautiful frame where Marcello can play magic tricks and prepare a delightful and nostalgic surprise to Anita and then watch the famous sequence of the Fontana de Trevi that the two performed in 1960. This dialog between medias and time is hypnotic, mysterious and funny too. It's a perfect fusion of realities, facts and fiction friendly put together in one single film.One of Fellini's finest and a treasure to be sought. 9/10

"Intervista" means interview and naturally that's not at all what this is.Fellini does start off with a fictional interview with a Japanese TV crew but the movie develops to include a recreation of his own first trip to Cinecitta (as a journalist to interview a famous actress), a look at the process of making a Fellini film, reminiscences of his own previous movies, cinema in general and the music of Nino Rota, sideswipes at TV and advertising and the silly questions asked by journalists.We jump about between several layers of 'reality' - the fake 'interview', the '30's recreation, the creation of that recreation, real people playing more or less fictionalised versions of themselves. At one point we have Fellini-surrogates Mastroianni and Rubini, and Fellini himself, all in a car together.The film lacks the epic sweep and spectacle of "Roma", perhaps due to its genesis as a TV film, and much of it will mean little to those unfamiliar with Fellini's earlier work. Nonetheless, there is much to enjoy, from Rubini and Mastroianni's discussion of masturbation, through the scenery-painters' rather blunt dialogue, to the rightly acclaimed and very poignant scene of Mastroianni and Ekberg revisiting "La Dolce Vita".In fact the Mastroianni/Ekberg scene probably sums up the whole film - a wistful look back at past glories and a perhaps rather rueful look at where Fellini, and the rest of us, had arrived at by 1987.

So to sum it all up, Fellini seems to be saying in this film, he lived for movies. Like a long train ride as a passenger, a lover, a player, a commentator he lived through it all and had his moments. When Marcello Mastroianni says to Anita Eckberg while watching the fountain scene from La Dolce Vita with the party at her mansion that for one moment they made magic, it seemed to sum it all up. For the actors, the film maker and for us the audience, there were moments that were magic. This film is a great movie makers collage of his memories of his life. If it had been cinematic itself it would have taken away from the message. Life at its very best can yield a few magic moments, and those lucky enough to make those moments of magic can appreciate the rest of it all that serves as the backdrop. Like the film studio around which Fellini's life revolved and which gave him all those great memories he shared with us here.