Where are all these beautiful people going?
There are some who consider 1983's And the Ship Sails On to be minor Fellini, but Criterion thought highly enough of it to give it their Seal of Approval and make it one of their earliest DVD releases. (Its spine number is 50, placing it well ahead of such notables as 8 1/2 and La Strada.) As such, it's a candidate for an upgrade like the kind Amarcord received a few years back, which would be appropriate since both films share as air of nostalgia for a bygone era. In this case, it's the one that evaporated virtually overnight with the outbreak of the First World War.
As the film opens -- with a bravura sequence that starts out completely silent and in black and white, only gradually giving way to tinting, faint sound effects and music before finally achieving full-fledged color and sound -- it is July 1914 and a mélange of high society types is boarding an ocean liner bound for an island in the Mediterranean, where the ashes of famed opera star Edmea Tetua are to be dispersed. Frequently called the greatest soprano of all time, much to the consternation of her successor (Barbara Jefford), Edmea is accompanied to her final resting place by the members of both her opera company and the aristocracy, to whom we're breathlessly introduced by self-styled journalist Orlando (Freddie Jones), who acts as the film's narrator, directly addressing the camera (and he's not the only one that acknowledges it). He's the first to admit, though, that he's out of his depth, saying, "My job is a bit ludicrous, isn't it?"
Boasting shimmering cinematography by Giuseppe Rotunno, buoyed by the work of production designer Dante Ferretti, who embraces the artificiality of its studio-bound shoot (which isn't that limiting when the studio in question is Cinecittà), And the Ship Sails On pokes fun at the foibles of the moneyed class, even while Fellini and his co-writer Tonino Guerra evince a great affection for all of them. Of special note is the bizarre sadomasochistic relationship between Sir Reginald (Peter Cellier) and his wife Lady Violet (Norma West), which is powered by his seething jealousy. Sublimated desire of a different sort swells in the heart of comic Ricotin (Jonathan Cecil), who swoons for a swarthy deckhand, but is prevented from expressing his admiration. And the same would go for Orlando, who admires the chaste Dorothea (Sarah-Jane Varley) from afar, but eventually he works up the nerve to speak to her and even share a dance with her.
The character who probably comes off best is the blind princess (played by choreographer Pina Bausch, the subject of Wim Wenders's documentary Pina) who may be sightless, but that doesn't prevent her from seeing things more clearly than the people around her. And her brother, the Grand Duke of Prussia (Fiorenzo Serra), proves his mettle when the ship encounters an Austro-Hungarian battleship intent on capturing the Serbian refugees that the crew rescued from the sea after they fled the country. While the Grand Duke gets them safe passage to carry out Edmea's last wishes, though, even he can't alter the course of history.