Is Federico Fellini’s City of Women a profound feminist critique or a tired male fantasy?
In short: In this 1980 surrealist odyssey, a man named Snàporaz wanders into a bizarre, female-dominated world. The film is a polarizing collage of dreams and sexual anxieties that left critics deeply divided: some saw a master at his peak, while others dismissed it as a repetitive, self-indulgent exercise in machismo.
Directed by Federico Fellini and co-written with Bernardino Zapponi and Brunello Rondi, City of Women follows Snàporaz, played by Marcello Mastroianni, as he navigates a dreamlike landscape. The journey begins when he follows a mysterious woman off a train and into a hotel hosting a feminist convention. From there, he encounters a series of surreal environments, including a gymnasium where he is forced to wear roller skates and a mansion owned by Dr. Xavier Katzone, a man who celebrates his 10,000th sexual conquest with an extravagant party.
The film’s reception was starkly split. Critics like Vincent Canby praised it as a spellbinding, dazzling visual display that captured the complex, contradictory feelings of a middle-aged man facing shifting social mores. Conversely, many reviewers, including Roger Ebert, argued that the film offered no genuine insight into feminism, instead relying on tired stereotypes of shrill, whip-wielding harridans. Others, such as Gene Siskel, noted that the film felt like an overlong, repetitive essay on the predicament of modern man, lacking the inspiration of Fellini’s earlier masterpieces like 8½.
Beyond the critical debate, the film serves as a window into Fellini’s psyche. It is filled with his signature imagery—grotesque beings, carnival-like commotion, and phallic symbolism—that some found captivating and others found vulgar. While it failed to achieve significant box-office success in the United States, where it was released in April 1981, it remains a significant, if controversial, entry in the director’s filmography. Whether viewed as a tragic, light-hearted game or a desperate act of a tired filmmaker, the movie remains a striking example of Fellini’s commitment to his own internal, dream-driven logic.
Ultimately, City of Women functions as a catalogue of emotions rather than a coherent narrative. By the time Snàporaz wakes up on the train, the audience is left to decide if the experience was a profound confrontation with his own masculinity or merely a series of glittering, disconnected set-pieces. It is a film that demands interpretation, inviting viewers to navigate its thicket of symbols and decide for themselves if the maestro’s magic still held sway.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: City of Women
- Also: Wikidata — City of Women · CC0
- Also: Wikidata — City of Women · CC0
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