Wonderful Movie

The Age of Commercialism

I'll tell you why so serious

hyped garbage

JULIET OF THE SPIRITS is a fantasy comedy drama film which is designed as a very fun psychoanalytic game. However, this film deals with serious topics, such as fraud in marriage and sexual crisis in middle age. Mr. Fellini has brought a surreal-fantastic view of the bourgeoisie, through a fairy-tale face of a middle-aged woman.Giulietta is a wealthy housewife who constantly fears her husband is cheating on her. She yearns for the quiet intimacy with her husband. However, their eccentric friends are common in their house. To find inner peace, she goes to a psychological session. She begins to explore her subconscious and the odd lifestyle of her sexy neighbor, Suzy, as she attempts to deal with her mundane life. It appears that all of Giulietta's family, friends, and fantasies demand that she loosen up and embrace sexual freedom, yet she remains chaste and dowdy, lamenting over her unfaithful husband...I have to admit that it was difficult to cope with this challenge, which is composed by fantasy and dreams, but its final product is more than clear. Psychological problems of the main protagonist, which, among other things, consist of repressed experiences, are very complex, but not unpleasant. Mr. Fellini did not try to give an answer to her obvious problem. He tries to faithfully convey a painful experience of her youth, which directly influences her decisions in the present.The characterization is not as good as in Fellini's previous films. Mr. Rota has offered a pleasant musical background.Giulietta Masina as Giulietta Boldrini is very good in the role of a confused, deceived and lonely wife. She is one of my favorite face on screen. The whole cast performs delightfully, particularly Sandra Milo (Suzy / Iris / Fanny), a sweet courtesan and Giulietta's guide to sexual freedom.

I have a lot of admiration for Federico Fellini and his films. His style is not for everybody, people will find it fascinating complete with beautiful visuals, a personal and nostalgic sense of storytelling and characters that are not what they seem on first glance, but others may find him/them self-indulgent or dull. While I can understand the latter viewpoint, I belong in the those who find him/them fascinating camp.Juliet of the Spirits is not my favourite Fellini film. My pick for best is between La Dolce Vita and 8 1/2, though I also give Nights of Cabiria a big shout out for being the film that resonated with me the most emotionally. Amarcord and La Strada are also splendid. In fact of the nine films seen so far(including this, Casanova, Roma and Satyricon) even my least favourite so far, Satyricon which I found his weirdest film and a little disjointed, have many points of merit.A perfect film? Not quite for me. I did feel that a few scenes did feel less focused than others in terms of tone and that a couple dragged. Then again, like with all Fellinis, I think a couple of re-watches might do the trick.But Juliet of the Spirits has many things to admire about it. While not all the scenes worked entirely for me, I found the mix of dreams, Jungian psychology, spiritualism and astrology very interesting, if perhaps not as spellbinding to watch as 8 1/2, and much more even and less jumpy in structure than Satyricon. The characters I was at least engaged with, I didn't quite identify the whole step of the way with the titular character completely like with Nights of Cabiria and La Strada, but again unlike Casanova I didn't find her a detached character either.Visually, Juliet of the Spirits is stunning. The use of vibrant colours, beautiful settings and colourful costumes are as ever a feast for the eyes. Fellini's direction is overall superb, the films I cited as my favourites in the first paragraph, as well as Roma, had more of a personal and nostalgic value, but the sense of craftsmanship and care that goes in every film of his I've seen really shines through here. Nino Rota's score is bright, characterful and not too obtrusive.Giulietta Masina is a big part of why Juliet of the Spirits works very well on the whole. Her ever expressive face makes for a both spirited and moving performance. The supporting cast support her well. All in all, an interesting and very good film if falling short just of greatness. 8/10 Bethany Cox

From director Federico Fellini (Nights of Cabiria, Amarcord), I obviously spotted this Italian film in the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die book, and I was very interested to watch anything that is recommended that highly. Basically in a beautiful house by the ocean are a family of sisters and their Mother (Caterina Boratto), they are all beautiful, but they overshadow naive and spiritually superstitious Giulietta (Juliet) Boldrini (Giulietta Masina). She has had enough of her boring and predictable lifestyle, and she decides she needs to escape, so she sees a psychic fortune teller to get some advice. The seer tells her that she will find a happier life is she joins the sex trade, i.e. become a prostitute and sell her body, and after this she meets her eccentric and sexual neighbour Suzy (Sandra Milo), who is herself a high class prostitute. Giulietta gets into various sexual acts, but she feels really guilty and nervous afterwards and during, and she also finds out that her husband Giorgio (Mario Pisu) is having some sort of affair, on the phone anyway, with a woman named "Gabriella", he also says her name in his sleep, but lies his way out of answering his wife's questions. She fears her husband will leave her for Gabriella, now that she knows who she is, and she starts having visions of spirits accusing her of things and frightening her. The most significant vision though comes towards the end and Giulietta realises that she would have a much better life without Giorgio, and that any emotions she has have been overruled by her superstitions. Also starring Sandra Milo as Iris and Fanny, Luisa Della Noce as Adele, Sylva Koscina as Sylva, Lou Gilbert as Grandfather and Valentina Cortese as Valentina. The performances are as good as you are going to get, but it is the visuals that really make the film what it is, with the leading character escaping into some odd, weird, magical, whatever you want to call it, fantasy world full of colourful sets and costumes, it is a reasonably interesting fantasy drama. It was nominated the Oscars for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration and Best Costume Design, and it won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign-Language Foreign Film. Worth watching!

Fellini fascinates me because there have never been any other films like his. As with the rest of his work that I've seen, with Juliet of the Spirits, he is cotton-dry, avoiding any intimacy or tenderness, his story is very abstract and must be told in the most purely cinematic sense. Fellini's extremely talented wife, Giulietta Masina, plays the title role, a mysterious nod to her own name. Giulietta explores her subconscious, having wild dreams, and finds herself partaking in the peculiar daily life of her neighbor, sexy Sandra Milo, trying to escape from the drearily tedious days she passes as the wife of her womanizing husband who oppresses her (perhaps based on Fellini himself, the connection that perhaps can be made between the familiarization of the title role with Masina herself?).The journey Giulietta takes is a psychologically elevating one, as she comes to know herself completely by working through her desires and demons, and Fellini takes us through it with some of the most inarguably beautiful cinematography I have ever seen in my life. The emboldened colors are given to great schemes and themes and his extended takes capturing constant activity result in incredible steadicam and panning shots.The largest role played in the film however is Fellini, the key to whose mystique lies in the distance he keeps between himself and the audience. So, he continues to beguile me as it's difficult to let this movie go once it's over.