Jep Gambardella, the aging Roman journalist played by the great Toni Servillo in Italian director Paolo Sorrentino's tour de force "The Great Beauty," tells us that when he was young his friends always had the same answer to the big question: "pussy." His answer was different: "The smell of old people's houses." The question was, "What do you value most in life?" and through his answer Jep learned that he was "born to sensibility," born to be a writer.

Jep seems not to notice that he's telling us this story through the delirious haze of a hedonistic rooftop party, attended by the cream of Roman society, where the vibe feels much closer to the first answer than the second.

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Source: http://www.salon.com