Satyricon (1969, Italy)

Federico Fellini's masterpiece portrays the fall of ancient Rome, and this is achieved by showing a series of sexual situations which are all unconventional and mostly gay. But the whole thing is so allegorical that it's a difficult film to watch, with no consistent narrative or plot. It says a lot about Fellini's status as a respected film director that this got by the censor at this relatively early date.

At the beginning of the film, Encolpio (Martin Potter) is declaiming in a monologue, lamenting the fact that his boy slave has been stolen from him; the boy is his sex partner Gitone (Max Born), and Encolpio informs the world that he sits down to piss, and he wears a skirt, like he was not born a man.

Encolpio gets Gitone back, and we see that he is a quite beautiful young man; they run through scenes of debauchery and squalor together.

Later Encolpio is captured and enslaved on a galley; but mysteriously the galley captain Licha (Alain Cuny) releases him because of his beauty and a strange mock wedding ceremony takes place on the galley, in which the captain is presented as the bride. They are urged to procreate children and they go below decks, apparently to try to do so.

Later we see a scene in which lame and disfigured people are brought into the presence of a weak figure referred to as a semi-god ["semi-dio"]. The figure is raised up by attendants for the public to see, and we see a figure with breasts and no body hair, but apparently a penis; the person is referred to as "he" throughout.

The film is often referred to as Fellini Satyricon; and there was another film called Satyricon released the previous year by a different director.

HF October 2003

This Page: Satyricon Return to Alphabetical Index Page Return to Home Page

Hazel Freeman's International Transgender Film Guide is maintained by

Hazel Freeman

and hosted at