Week 10: Watch La Dolce Vita

Every week in 2011, for 52-straight weeks, I hope to try something new and blog about it here. This is the tenth post in the series, when I finally watched Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, in the middle of a pretty rough week of being sick. Here you will find a list of all my weekly adventures thus far.

As someone who majored in French in college, I’ve seen a lot of foreign films. The jury is still out on whether or not I truly enjoy foreign films, especially films pre-1980. One of my classes on French culture involved an intensive study on Jean-Luc Godard and New Wave Francophone Cinema {generally of the black & white variety}. This is NOT to say I was a film studies major. First and foremost, I studied literature and doubled a major with English as well. When I had extra units to spare, I was able to dabble in French cultural classes like the aforementioned one.

Something about foreign films appeals to my ongoing desire to travel and passion for foreign languages. Plus, two of my favorite all-time movies have been Amélie {French} and Pan’s Labyrinth {Spanish}. But I have yet to see so many movies, American or otherwise. I’m not sure why I’ve had it in my head forever, but I’ve felt the need to see La Dolce Vita for a very, very long time. That long term unfulfillment and the week-long flu/cold/plague I’ve been suffering from made this week’s “new thing” a very simple choice. Lounge in front of the tv with kleenex, a billion pills and La Dolce Vita on Netflix. Perfection in this otherwise tainted week.

{Source}

If you know me at all, you’ll remember my adoration of vintage posters and 1950s-60s culture/fashion.

I will spare you any commentary on the film other than it kept in the tradition of most 1960s foreign films: très, très bizarre. But it was also beautiful at the same time, split up into eight mini episodes of self-contained narrative, which seem to have nothing to do with the previous scene. Except, maybe some commentary about how love and fidelity was nearly impossible in the free loving, drinking, smoking and drug-using culture of the 1960s. I still don’t entirely get it. And probably will end up watching it again soon.

Anyways, I definitely recommend at least checking it out. Just be warned that European cinema is anything but linear. This film was pivotal in cinematic development and has been referenced in a number of works since it came out.

So what else have I been up to this week?

Working baseball games

Giving Woodstock a bath {video below, I swear he’s not all there upstairs}

And drinking lots and lots of these

It’s an adaptation of Sweat & the City‘s cold/flu remedy smoothie. Into mine went:

• three oranges (from my garden, so they’re not as large as supermarket oranges)
• 1 c coconut milk
• 1 handful coconut flakes
• 1/2 c mango
• ice to thicken it up

The smoothie tasted soooo good, I almost wouldn’t mind being sick to have it Ok, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but I have been drinking 1-2 of these bad boys a day. I hope it’s helping.

Oh well, in the meantime I’m going to go back to snuggling up on the couch with my kleenex. Ugh, I’m ready to come out from being “under the weather” as they say…

Advertisement