I think this is one of those "key" films for a director, that may not necessarily be his best, but is filled to the brim with his passions and obsessions -- or, the passions and obsessions he doesn't bring up in his other films. The fact that a major artist could direct something so homoerotic and so in-your-face makes me respect Fellini all the more. It's hard to tell what, exactly, the film is or is meant to be: it's a satire and an honest costume drama, a sword-and-sandal epic, a fantasy, an attack on the senses and an art mockery, and a love story. It's also very sexy. Some of the scenes between Encolpio and Ascilto, both astonishingly beautiful men, are so erotic you can't believe this movie was accepted at the time. Obviously the movie is at first a gross-out masterpiece, a flaunting of Fellini grotesqueries, where there is boy-loving and boy-selling, decapitations, and farting. <br /><br />As a comedy, there's a great scene where Encolpio and Ascilto divide up their things, including the boy they use (who is much more feminine than boyish); as an epic there's a battle with a minotaur; as a romance there's a startling scene between the two men in bed with another women where one leans over to run his fingers through the other's hair; as an art satire there's the attack on poets who steal from others and claim it as their own; as a marriage comedy there's a scene where Encolpio marries an old man and is told he must give up his taste for young boys. (Encolpio resembles both Malcolm McDowell -- surely something thought of during the making of "Caligula" -- and a more mature Christopher Atkins in "The Blue Lagoon.") It's also interesting to compare this depiction of Roman society with our current one, and see if Fellini's view of same-sexuality and decadence has any resonance today. I think the comedy of the film is overlooked, as well; the competition between Encolpio and Ascilto, their vanity, sexual appetites, and Encolpio's eventual impotence, is very mocking, but never mean-spirited. Whatever this is, it's a very strong vision, and on that score alone it's worth watching. 8/10