Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

It is rather neglected a movie by Fellini, but I agree with those who see it as a 'metaphor' of the Italian society; not of the Italian society in general, but of the Italian society at the end of the '70s. After 1968, there was turmoil in the country and the artist's message is quite clear, apparently: prolonged social strife can lead to dictatorial outcomes. The message is not so clear at the beginning of the film and it might be seen as a sort of a 'documentary', but when that huge stone 'ball' starts pounding on the building where the 'orchestra' are rehearsing and a faraway voice starts becoming more and more clear and strong, Fellini's message becomes obvious.

A somewhat failed experience, but still worth the watch. ORCHESTRA REHEARSAL has been considered a lesser Fellini and it shows -- the story is pared down to its essential, any dream sequence or sequences filmed out of context from the original story are nowhere to be seen, and the action takes place and resolves itself in what seems to be real time, which is the movie's 72 minute duration.It can be a political allegory or simply what it is at face value: people gathering together in locked quarters, coming from different walks of life, being introduced to each others, telling bits and pieces of their life stories through the instruments they play, with the occasional commentaries indicating a self-importance that these people have of their position in the "orchestra".That it takes place in a burial ground for popes enhances its symbolic value and Fellini's attitudes towards religion and religious figures and their relationship to the common people and vice versa. Interesting to see that the conductor is the only person in authority and happens to be German -- it made me wonder what Fellini might be trying to say here, but it seems to express an aversion to tyranny as the conductor is not what I would call an easy person to get along with. Even when he yammers in soft tones there is a harshness about him that is telling. He wants the musicians to perform beauty, art in music, and berates them horribly for not doing so. It then becomes not a "will they revolt" as to a countdown to their revolt -- people in general will not tolerate micro-management of any kind for more than they have to, and that in fact could be another of the film's many interpretations if applied to an office setting of a company considered a "sacred rock" of industry. It's an even more visually punch when Fellini bulldozes the auditorium at the very climax -- it's as if the movie would have folded itself outwards into the realms of Fellini the director to Fellini as God striking this place dead in its tracks to have order being restored; it's an arresting sequence, powerful in meaning, and one that elevates this short movie from what would have been an unremarkable experience.

This miniature movie's tempo builds, stops and starts in that comical, jerky way characteristic of Fellini. It's one of the things I like.The interviews are a riot!It appears to be a parable of the last few hundred years of European history.

This noble effort by Fellini reveals that one of his unspoken influences in film was no doubt Rene Cardonas. Orchestra Rehearsal reveals chaotic visions of a society crumbling within the confines of destruction and apathy. It appears obvious that Fellini borrowed the protaga-symbolism that Rene Cardonas used in his film "Santa Claus," the only difference being Cardonas delivered a clear and enlightening vision. Fellini came close, but there is only one Rene Cardonas.