Federico Fellini (director of four Oscar-winning Best Foreign Language Films) pulls out all the stops in this fantasy-laden, cinematic paean. More an experiential journey than a travelogue, Roma teems with images and sequences inspired by the filmmaker's remembrances and by his sharp observations about modern times. The settings shift from outdoor banquets to music halls, subterranean tunnels to bordellos and more, all enlivened by Fellini's unique style and imagination. (The Ecclesiastical Fashion Show even includes roller-skating priests who 'move faster to paradise.') For all his dazzling imagery, the cinema's high priest of pomp and audacity also had a message--that Rome and Western civilization itself may be at an end.


