Ben-hur: I take off the centurion's helmet

There are many movies I haven't seen. To give you an idea of the magnitude of the tragedy, I didn't see Dirty Dancing until lockdown (what a marvel) or, as incredible as it may seem, Pretty Woman. For someone born in 1990, turning thirty and never having seen Pretty Woman is like saying you've never heard La Bomba, or like having crossed the square with firm steps in the middle of a water fight and having your clothes completely dry. Well, it's possible. Pretty Woman! I like the triangle it draws with the universal Cinderella plot and how Nights of Cabiria (Fellini, 1957) is its dark, fatal, bitter version. And yet, with an ending that illuminates the spirit with the force of a thousand suns.

But I'm not here today to talk about Pretty Woman, nor about Nights of Cabiria, nor about La Bomba (some of the audience is leaving, disappointed). I wanted to take advantage of this series of articles to effectively fill some of my cinematic gaps. I want to get to know this collective landscape. In an era of massive audiovisual supply and absolute atomization of channels, I cure my FOMO retrospectively. And I have begun my redemption with the colossal, disproportionate, cathedralsque, amphitheater-like, and mastodonic Ben-Hur. I know: it should have been watched a) as a child b) with your grandfather and c) during the Easter holidays, but logistically it's complicated for me.

Verdict: I loved it, deserved fame, I can't wait for Easter to see it again with an interlude of a comatose nap. A pleasure to discover what was the starting point for Life of Brian. You can find it on Filmin.