City of Women

Directed by Federico Fellini, who co-wrote it with Bernardino Zapponi and Brunello Rondi, this 1980 Italian-French fantasy comedy-drama stars Marcello Mastroianni as Snàporaz. During a train journey, Snàporaz catches a bottle slipping from a woman's hands and locks eyes with her; intrigued, he follows when she leaves the compartment, but she suddenly disembarks and vanishes. Chasing after her, he stumbles into a hotel populated entirely by women, where a massive feminist gathering is underway. From there he drifts through a dreamlike succession of male and female realms, moving toward a reckoning with his own attitudes toward women and, ultimately, with his wife. Filled with Fellini's trademark outrageous and surreal imagery, the film blends erotic fantasy, satire and self-examination. It was presented out of competition at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival and remains one of the director's most personal late works.