THIS re-release demonstrates why Federico Fellini’s comedy drama 8½ is still up there among the film greats of all time.

Fellini’s screen alter ego Marcello Mastroianni stars as successful director Guido, who has everything lined up to make a new film but has no story to tell. 

Assailed by both real and imaginary characters, he is forced to face the memories of his repressed childhood and discovers that he can’t run away from his loneliness. 

Delving into the chaotic mind of an artist in crisis, Fellini made the film immediately after the commercial success of La Dolce Vita, when he could finally work in total freedom with all the technical support he desired. 

A fantasy yet specifically autobiographical, it unfolds with the lucidity and brilliance of a dream, as Fellini’s artistic credo of “looking at reality with an honest eye” reaches its peak.

A microcosm of Italian consciousness and a merciless exposé of bourgeois morality, Fellini’s film depicts pressing social problems and offers a Marxist remedy.

It’s a masterpiece best enjoyed on the big screen.