[The traffic sequence in Roma] is one of those ever-more-rare sequences in Fellini's work which treat a simple, daily matter in an abstracted, symbolic way, but still so beguilingly realistic as to become prototypes of the matter portrayed.

This ability to make one see that which one should really have seen all along but somehow hasn't seen, has been Fellini's major force. Because of it, his films have a haunting quality between realism and stylization even when they are (or rather, were) about everyday things….

[The mixture of reality and fantasy] is still the thing Fellini does best. In fact, sometimes the suspicion grows that he may be on the road to losing the capacity for distinguishing the difference.

Thus for those to whom a certain tie to reality is not one of cinema's essentials, this must appear to be Fellini's best film since 8 1/2. It is certainly the...