The Great Beauty

Paolo Sorrentino won the Oscar fair and square for his Felliniesque tribute to the Eternal City, a dionysian cinematic ride concealing grief and emptiness behind its gorgeous imagery, transforming existential pain into a never-ending party.

Synopsis

Rome in the summer. Tourists flock to Janiculum Hill. A charming -despite first signs of aging- man, enjoys the city’s social life. He attends dinners and parties, where his dazzling presence is always welcomed. As a young journalist, he wrote a novel that procured him a literary prize and the reputation of a repressed artist. He throws a roof party at his apartment, which has a view of the Colosseum, where "The Human System" (his novel’s title), is exposed and an empty farce is taking place.