Film

Ginger & Fred (1986)

Director: Federico Fellini

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

The absence of Fellini's name before the title seems a just indication of a return to something warmer, quieter and more intimate than his grandiose freak shows. Confirming this is his reunion with his wife Masina after a gap of some 23 years, and with Mastroianni, so often his alter ego in the past. They play a couple of old hoofers, who used to tour the boards doing a respectful homage to Astaire and Rogers; they are being brought together after all these years by a TV show in Rome. A long first half, chronicling Ginger's return to the city, shows the place to be in the grip of much general urban decay, and allows Fellini his usual wallowing in all the quirky sideshows (a dead pig, lit up with fairy lights, dangles from the railway station roof). But once the couple finally get together, a warmth which Fellini has not displayed for years gradually seeps all over the screen. She is still trim, a courageous old fighter; he is seedy, but with an ironic detachment. Not even Fellini's deadly sarcasm about TV's horrible degradation of all human values can quite dim the magic that they restore with their little dance. As usual, Fellini doesn't have a lot to say; but it amounts to considerably more than his usual marginal doodlings, and it is irresistibly charming. CPea.

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