Is Roma a sort of stealth sequel to Fellini’s previous film, Satyricon? It can certainly be seen as such: like the film Fellini made three years earlier, it is a sprawling tapestry that is focused less on telling a coherent plot than on moving from episode to episode and from setpiece to setpiece. Where Satyricon depicted, and satirised, ancient Rome, the city’s story is taken into the more recent past and even the present in Roma, making the two films a sort of History of Rome, Parts I & II. But where the earlier film was based on the writings of Petronius, Roma‘s angle is decidedly subjective.

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