This story is culturally valuable because it shows the beauty of meaningfully existing, unchanged, amid destructive and oppressive forces. When a peacock lands in the snow with its beautiful, vibrant blue and green feathers, it exemplifies beauty, simply existing, within harsh conditions. When trying to consider what the characters of this movie create, one may find it hard to say. That is because the point of the story is not that the characters of this small Italian town create any wondrous miracles or any world-altering advances, but rather that they maintain what they already have and admirewhich is their sense of community and individual compassiondespite oppressive odds. Fellini gives his audience mischievous adolescents, oblivious teachers, a "crazy" uncle, a humorous grandfather, an idealistic and extremely feminine beauty, a generous but sickly mother and her easily-angered husband dissatisfied workers, a story-telling lawyer, a prince, and a lying snack vendor. And none of these characters is ever treated inhumanely, or as being of any less value than any others. The uncle has an episode in which he climbs a tree and throws rocks at people who try to get him down, all the while yelling, "I want a woman!" Hours pass and the doctor who eventually comes to get him down remarks, "He has normal days, and he has not normal days
Just like us." This shows the compassion that allows such a peaceful beauty to exist. Through the interactions of these characters, Fellini allows his audiences to encounter a town, the families, a community, and the simplesometimes tragic and sometimes beautifullife that exists within it. This film is powerful because it is saying that one does not have to defeat oppression to be worthy of being a model, seen and honored. You have only to live, to be yourselfwhich means to createto be something powerful and moving.
