Fellini conjures up an extravagant, utterly gorgeous version of the old yarn, which easily justifies its existence by Donald Sutherland's bravura turn as the mid-18th-century Venetian author, lecher and scientist arrested by the Inquisition on a black magic charge. The material really suits Fellini, who goes to town working on an enormous budget of around $10 million, with sets, photography and music that are impeccable and ingratiatingly impressive. Is it fun? Well, yes it is in its grand and serious-minded way. It's a long session at nearly three hours, but they whiz by, and leave you longing for all the bits that obviously hit the cutting room floor, at least in this English-language version. Fellini was never very good at pacing a movie and at the art of story-telling, but scene-by-scene and image-by-image this movie provides some of the best examples of his art. And Sutherland, in every scene, is a revelation.

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