Headlined by four Italo-French megastars, Ettore Scola’s LA TERRAZZA (“The Terrace”) holds a distinction in its political persuasion. Commencing with a dinner party held on the terrace of Roman villa, most of its participants are communist politicians or intellectuals, the film repeatedly reverts to the same gathering (heralded by the hostes “La cena è pronta!”), to introduce each of its five main characters (all of middle-aged, male persuasion), to chart their love lives, the setback of their vocations and their blatant personal crises.

A marbles-losing screenwriter, a discontent journalist, an anorexic and depressed pencil-pusher in the Rai public broadcasting company, an uxorious movie producer, plus a deputy of Italian Communist party who starts an adulterous affair, Scola’s leftist dysphoria is sieved through those five men’s lives, whether they are heading to a tailspin or not, the film is shrouded in an atmosphere of anxiety, disillusion and resignation, occasionally ebullitions slash through, like Gassman’s Mario, the party deputy, finally blows off steam of his self-loath, which largely falls on deaf ears among his cohorts.

During the dinner sequences, it is like operating an ensemble piece on a dime, DP. De Santis adroitly interposes long takes among various characters, discreetly listens to their conversations, or follows the kerfuffles, but there are no Altmanesque flourishes, which can concatenate all the fluid movements into a delectable visual orchestra. Here, Scala is more keen on building the signs of the times than showing off his sleight of hand, and juggling between studio and location shooting, LA TERRAZZA is an oddity that looks old school but attempts to say something au courant (the self-reflection of a society burdened with bureaucracy, commercialism and hypocrisy), therefore, it feels often luxuriate in the inner circles’ own woes and melancholia. It is so cruel to see Mastroianni’s Luigi the journalist, gets a cold shoulder from a young girl, the erstwhile Italian dreamboat now has been reduced to a gabby uncle figure that is so detached from the younger generation (a metaphor of Italian cinema’s glorious days are on the ineluctable wane).

Among the cast, Trintignant’s Enrico, the screenwriter is off his trolley pressured by finishing a script which has already been paid for, is one of the standouts, along with Gravina as Carla, Luigi’s estranged wife, a career woman who is resolute to shed any of the usual shackles that foisted upon the weaker sex (only to be comically amused to discover her long-past-her-prime mother is accidentally gravid), and Sandrelli is also exceptionally copacetic as Giovanna, Mario’s mistress, a be speccy, straight-haired wife who has a penchant for crying at 6 pm everyday. That said, as usual, female characters are mostly underdeveloped, Emanuela (Vukotic), Enrico’s put-upon wife, and Enza (Colli), the spoiled wife of Amedeo the movie mogul (Tognazzi), are shorthands of certain female stereotypes.

“It is not facts that happen, but moods.” the motto of Sergio (Reggiani), the doomed pencil-pusher rendered obsolete by the byzantine edifice of bureaucracy, and LA TERRAZZA, by the same token, qualifies as a mood setter that is true to Scola’s ideology and a star-studded smorgasbord of caprices that caters to a continental taste.

referential entries: Scola’s SPLENDOR (1989, 7.5/10); Mario Monicelli’s MY FRIENDS (1975, 7.6/10).