We got the video out from the library because it's cheaper, because they have a better range than the Blockbuster, and because they let you keep them for a week. The vid was coverless but someone had written on it in slanty felt-tip: Fillinis 8 1/2.

It took us three nights to sit through the film. It's not what you might call accessible. First Simon nodded off, and then I decided to "just rest my eyes for a bit," and before too long I was also snoring and twitching. We hammered on because we thought that seeing this classic film would be good for us. It's funny, but I enjoyed it. I loved the scenes that were set at a spa, and, best of all, this film introduced me to the character La Saraghina, played by Edra Gale.

La Saraghina first appears in a flashback sequence. The protagonist is a young boy and he and his friends like nothing better than to go to the shack on the beach, and pay the local whore a coin to watch her rumba for them.

La Saraghina is not your typical Pretty Woman, in fact she's frankly terrifying. She's like a cross between Divine in Female Trouble and Tura Satana in Faster, Pussycat Kill! Kill! She's pretty hefty (although not "enormously fat," or even "monstrous," as some commentators have said), tall, big-boned, she's got ratted-up hair, old make-up smeared all over her face, a tight black dress and a bad bad look in her eye.

So she dances a really weird and frenzied to Saraghina's Music, which was composed specially for this scene. At first she's kind of funny, but the dance becomes crazed and she gets more and more sexual. She grabs one of the boys and dances in the sand with him. The other boys jump up and down with happiness and excitement.

The scene is based on reality. Saraghina is a nickname given by Federico Fellini and his boyhood friends to a local prostitute who worked the fishermen in return for the dregs of sardines. So she was called "La Saraghina," the sardine lady. Imagine having your earliest sexual feelings for a woman like this. I also read that this scene was shot overexposed, just as Saraghina overexposes herself in the blinding light of the day. I like that.

La Saraghina appears tangentially in later scenes and she grabs your eyes and won't let go every time. Even at the end of the film, when all the characters promenade, your eyes are searching the background for her.

I'm not one for role models in general, especially for fat people. I think this comes from years of being expected to like and want to be like Dawn French just because she's a chubber too. I think: why not lets just be our own cool fat selves instead of wanting to be like someone else? But La Saraghina is different. She dances for money, she looks incredible, she lives by her own rules, is unforgettable and has sex for fish juice. She is truly an fat girl icon.

Eddra Gale is the woman who plays La Saraghina. Born in 1921 she was (yes, was. She died in 2001) an opera singer who happened to get picked up and then spat out by Fellini. Her role in 81/2 was possibly the highlight of her career, afterwards she played dumb fat lady roles in films such as Revenge of the Cheerleaders and characters credited as, for example, Fat Party Guest in Gidget Goes to Rome. Such are the choices for fat actresses.

Meanwhile La Saraghina dances on and I'm in love with her, eyes wide, transfixed. La Saraghina! The rumba!

Need more? Look at these crappy La Saraghina bootleg clips but watch out, they're heavy Quicktime files (2-3mb each - ouch!)

La Saraghina 1
La Saraghina 2
La Saraghina 3