Juliette des esprits

Juliet of the Spirits has become one of my favorite Fellini films. The story involves a woman who discovers that her husband is cheating on her. The forces of family, tradition, the church, and an immoral society all pull at her and force her to make a difficult decision. These forces would be banal in a standard film but Fellini chooses to visualize them as images and dreams. The dream sequences are nearly perfect and create a sharp sense of the hazy logic and unreality of dreams. Other comments (as well as our friend Maltin) have noted that the symbolic nature of the film is a detriment. This is true only if you are constrained by reality and demand that film adhere to the rules you have set down (or more likely had set down for you). Taking the journey with this film is well worth the time and effort. I hesitate to state that a male director has successfully penetrated the inner desires of a woman, but in this case I think Fellini has at least come close to the mark. A film to be looked at, talked about, and enjoyed again and again.

"Juliet of the Spirits" is one way, I suppose, to make a dissatisfied bourgeois housewife's life look intriguing--a colorized "8 1/2" (1963) for writer-director Federico Fellini's actress-wife, Giulietta Masina. Most of this one involves her concern over her husband's philandering, but there's also her childhood memory--apparently, a traumatic event of some sort--of playing the central role of the martyr in a Catholic-school play. Plus, there's the circus of fashion and sex in the world of modeling and other carnivalesque endeavors that seems to surround her through her husband's work and that of her other family members, friends and neighbors. Much of this bombards her as surreal visual and audible hallucinations. I don't care to get into the Freudian or Jungian analysis of her problems, though. That nonsense is quite dull--like a lazy housewife dozing off while sunbathing on a beach. Kudos to Fellini, though, for making it look a sumptuous spectacle.

Instead of the director double standing in for Fellini in "8 1/2," who faces a creative crisis, the housewife here traces her marital trap back to the stage of her religious performance. Eventually, the promise of her salvation involves rescuing that childhood memory. This also seems to be the key, slight as it may be, to suggestions that "Juliet of the Spirits" alludes to Lewis Carroll's Alice books. I've been seeking a bunch of films inspired by that children's literature since reading them, and I came to this after reviewing Woody Allen's "Alice" (1990), which is said to be a reworking of this Fellini film, which also seems to be a slight connection to me having now viewed both, but I digress. If there is some of Carroll's Alice in Fellini's Giulietta, it's in their shared repressed childhood. Of course, the Alice books predate Freud and Surrealism and are nonsense rather than analytical, but they likewise parody their protagonist's outer reality within the dreamworld. That includes nursery rhymes and other prior children's literature. Likewise, "Juliet of the Spirits" ends up parodying film by turning it into a mode for surveillance of the husband's dalliances, or as a source of mockery via television.

Besides, akin to Wonderland, taking place along beaches, gardens and forests, note, too, how this film begins and ends visually. Within the first scene, there is a virtuoso shot through a series of looking glasses--announcing a mirror motif that continues to some extent throughout the picture. And, the ending includes the opening of a small door, so that Giulietta may finally enter the tunnel she's heretofore repeatedly shunned--especially as offered by her Caterpillar of a neighbor, who sports a butterfly tattoo (not as explicit as the White Rabbit ink in "The Matrix" (1990), but still...) and tries to show Giulietta who she may become. Although, with all the ridiculous head gear here, there really ought to be a Mad Hatter about; after all, it was a cat, like the Cheshire one with Alice, that led Giulietta to her neighbor's mad Champagne party (hey, they're Italian--not English). Moreover, the neighbor guides her quite vividly, what with the sex mirror on the ceiling, all of the deflowering going about alongside her flower-covered staircase, and the vaginal-like openings, through a pool slide and a hole to a platform in the trees (where, presumably, more sex is to occur). It's this Wonderland nonsense that's lustrous.

I loved this movie. For me, as a relatively new student of Fellini, I understand that there is a progression in his films over the years. His initial films are more generally coherent stories like "La Strada" and then his later films are more focused on the visual and surreal, like "8 1/2".

This movie is somewhere in between. There is the coherent storyline of Juliet and her philandering husband and all the other strange characters in her life, like family and friends, but then there is also the psychedelic and surreal element of the spirit world that Juliet is in close contact with everyday.

Masina is great as usual--she acts a lot just with her eyes and the expressions on her face.

This film is just a delight. My suggestion is that you don't try to analyze it too deeply. Just sit back and let the colors, settings, costumes, and larger than life characters wash over you.

Juliet, a plain (relatively speaking) woman (Giulietta Masina) finds the will to leave her philandering husband through strange visions and the weird sybaritic lifestyle of her neighbour Suzy (Sandra Milo). As much as I like Giulietta Masina, I didn't like this film as much the earlier neo-realist work she did with husband Federico Fellini, such as the superb 'La Strada' (1954). I am not a big fan of the flamboyant grotesqueries in which Fellini indulged himself in the 60s (although there are some striking images (both in dreams and in reality) in this film such as the parade on the beach or the strange recurring row of nuns). As usual, Masina, with her beautifully expressive face, is irresistible and although I didn't really like the film, I am glad I watched it.

This film by Fellini is basically the female version of 8 1/2. Instead of delving into the mind of a middle-aged Italian man dealing with problems with his wife and trying to figure out who he really is, it is about a middle-aged Italian woman dealing with problems with her cheating husband and trying to figure out who she really is. (I still can't decide who I like more as a lead in a Fellini film... Masina or Mastroianni.) The film is very enjoyable, and is definitely one of the films I would classify as a work of art. The one thing that really stands out to me, however, is this: It could only exist as a film. Most films are adapted from previously written novels, or at the very least can suffer the indignation of a "novelization" without losing the quality of the story. But I cannot fathom any way a writer could capture this film with words. It is very visual, but could not be painted or drawn either. I think this is one of the few films I've seen that is completely unique to the medium of film. Towards the end of the film, there is a scene where she is trying to avoid voices and images around her while hosting a party. It was at this point that I realized how perfectly every shot was set-up, and that there would be no way anyone could capture the feeling or the images with words.

I would be extremely fascinated to see what the shooting script to this film looked like. It's the fifth Fellini film I've seen, and I must say, I think I can call him my favorite director. He's the only director whom I've been enthralled by every single film I've seen of his. He has a perfect record, 1.000% batting average so far with me. I'm going to keep seeing more, and hopefully I won't ever be disappointed.