Marcello Mastroianni is widely perceived as Fellini's alter ego, and that view is never truer than in the scenario that develops around Mastroianni's character of Guido, the successful filmmaker taking a rest at a health spa while he plans what to do next. We have heard of writer's block, but this is a film examining director's block, and rarely has artistic crisis been so well symbolised or represented as it is here. There's a bizarre parade of clowns and an auspicious, impromptu gathering of everyone Guido has ever known over the years. He attempts (unsuccessfully, I should point out) to manage a domestic harem that includes both his wife and his mistress, while the superb female cast includes Claudia Cardinale as a beguiling dream girl, and there's a notable role for horror movie icon Barbara Steele.

As dramatised fantasy, Fellini's 8½ (aka: Otto E Mezzo) is just as whimsical, extraordinary, frustrating, awkward, incredible, and spellbinding as any honestly insightful apprehension of creativity must be. Pure self-indulgence is seldom this absorbing from the outside looking in and if, at times, Fellini himself just doesn't seem to know what he's doing or trying to say, well, then perhaps that is all the fault of the decidedly human character of Guido and not the film's director at all!