This was my second viewing, after something like 5 years. I hated it the first time. I loved it the second time. I think both reactions were right.
The first time I hated it because it was a lot of spoiled people making stupid decisions. Every time Marcello could have made something of his life, he would get distracted by something else and ruin everything. Most of the time he would get distracted by womanizing, but that wasn't the sum of his stupidity. For example, when he was chasing down Sylvia, he should have just embraced her and enjoyed the moonlit dance, or if he was daring, gone in for a kiss. Instead, he drags her all around Rome looking for a seedy room to shack up in. It was like the opposite of seizing the day. And the orgy scene - I'm not even going to start on that. It was the most miserable party imaginable.
I wouldn't say I missed the point the first time, because the whole point of the movie is that people make dumb choices that leave them with a bad time. I got the point, but I didn't understand it. It makes me feel both triumphant and crestfallen that I can see now what I couldn't see then. I think I knew I would get it this time because I very recently - just last night - had the realization that it's been months if not years since I've actually have a very good time and a truly fun party.
I hate most people now, and I can't stand their conversations, so this puts me in a bad starting point vis a vis enjoying myself when I'm in a crowd of people. I thought I used to have more fun drinking or dancing, but that can't been the whole explanation of what I used to have because I still love dancing and I never liked the idea of impairing myself. Even fun seems less fun when you're not fully there. I think a lot of activities are boring and stupid. Then I thought it was my take on romance - the idea of meeting someone new might have fueled me in the past, but now it just makes me exhausted. That's probably the closest explanation, because it's the attitude that has changed most noticeably over the years.
By chance I came across some old love letters from my first boyfriend when I was 18. It was tucked away in an old email account that I happened to check when I was about halfway through La Dolce Vita. There was a sweetness about those letters that killed me. I understand now that he really loved me - and at the time, I have no idea. It wasn't that I didn't think he was into me. It was more like I didn't know what a person sounds like when he's in love. It was my first relationship, so companionship was all I had on my mind - eg, how to fit this person in, how to prioritize him over others, etc. Love just didn't occur to me.
It breaks my heart because he's' married now, and at any rate, I doubt I could stir the kind of feelings now that I somehow could back then.
Full of regret as I was, the ending of La Dolce Vita has special resonance with me. If my child self were to call out to me, I wouldn't even understand what she was saying. I'd walk away from light and inspiration because I wouldn't know it was there. Instead, I'll keep looking for a party elsewhere, and plunge deeper into darkness and vapidity and boredom. I will never find the party.
If the last scene of La Dolce Vita were realistic instead of symbolic, it's true that the Umbrian angel wouldn't be able to show Marcello happiness and fulfillment anymore than the orgy he was walking back to. The consequences would probably be even more depressing, because it wouldn't end with Marcello missing out on salvation; it would end with the angel becoming another vapid sell-out aspiring starlet, or a destroyed woman-beast like Emma. The tragedy is that this is how all parties end. But the glory of cinema is that is draws the curtain before we have to see that scene, and it leaves us with a specter of a forgotten hope.
