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SPOILERS***

I normally raise an eyebrow when critics speak of directors of being “too indulgent” or expressing some sort of self-masturbatory vision. I scoff because it’s often misused; many have a mentality that cinema or music or any form of art should be pleasing to the masses. The point of art is, if I remember correctly from my grade school art class, a means of self expression. If a director’s wild vision accurately reflects the said director’s beliefs, mindset or dilemmas, then I find value in that. Just like you read reviews from your favorite critic because you’ve established a trust in their opinions, we should feel connected to the directors and actors and writers and why they choose the roles they do.

Juliet of the Spirits is a film that really puts this idea to test. Federico Fellini became of the most self-indulgent directors…ever, at some point during his career. Even during Juliet of the Spirits, which was a birthday gift to his wife and oft-used actress Giulietta Masina, Fellini couldn’t help but make the movie all about himself and his inner demons. The film follows Giulietta (also Masina’s character’s name) and her slow realization that her husband is cheating on her. On the way she discovers a bit about herself that was previously shadowed by her seemingly happy marriage.

For all the wild colors and incredibly creative cinematography, I find there is very little to write about this film, which is extremely disappointing. The opening scene had me absolutely giddy with excitement. I had seen calm Fellini with La Strada and crazy Fellini with 8 1/2, and I loved each of them. Juliet of the Spirits’ opening scene felt even more loose than 8 1/2, but also felt even more graceful than 8 1/2’s dream sequences, which are the highlight of the film. We shift around mirrors and view different wigs on the backside of Giulietta during one long, uninterrupted shot. She moves throughout rooms with her maids and it leads into many rapid discussions occurring simultaneously that blend together, yet progress the film and provide insights into each character.

While this opening scene is great, it quickly regresses. There is a long sequence where a woman attempts to connect with the spirits and random Fellini-like interruptions occur, such as a random telephone or a man ridiculing their crazy rituals. But what we do learn is that Juliet is very much a spiritual person, which is essential for the remainder of the film. This movie is about and only about Giulietta, whose desperate need for human connection only drives her towards her spirit friends as she learns more of her husband’s affair. She resists sexual temptation after sexual temptation, which either creates for some friendly spirit connections or some horrific images that reflect her inner demons and desires.

But we understand this fairly quickly, and really the movie feels like it’s said all it can halfway through. At some point, Fellini should have realized that there is such a thing as TOO MUCH. I love looking at the spectacular colors and random dreams filled with dead horses, girls on swingsets and slave-filled ships; I understand Fellini is on top of his game and could probably make a three-hour film with nothing but dream sequences. But honestly, I don’t care for the images if the story isn’t advancing. If there’s no progression, why am I watching? What, do we need to establish Giulietta becomes more depressed, or more driven with sexual desires she won’t act on? Her story is heartbreaking, it really is. But at one point, I just stop caring for the central character, which is the worst kind of movie parasite.

I honestly don’t feel confused or overwhelmed with how Fellini chose to film Juliet of the Spirits. On the contrary, I felt I understood everything quite well and I didn’t even need a second viewing. Giulietta is jealous of her better-looking siblings and mother, who constantly badgers her daughter about her appearance. She lives in a world where having a husband is everything, which makes her attempts to win him over seem heartless and unbecoming. Her sexy neighbor brings out the pressures of her desires to act on her sexual demons and get down with sexy, overly muscular Italian men. And it’s amazing how Fellini engages the spirits in bringing out these flaws in Giulietta. This is what makes the final scene work, where Giulietta is able to drive away her demons and clear the entire house, which becomes flooded with them, and finally let her husband go. She becomes a free woman because she realizes she doesn’t need men. She doesn’t need to act out on those sexual desires to be satisfied with herself. As far as empowering his significant other, Fellini gave one hell of a birthday present.

Yet, overall it feels unsatisfying. I don’t have a problem with the lack of a plot, as it is nothing more than a character exploration. But I do have a problem with the lack of a script. The great thing about cinema that separates itself from literature is its ability to provide visual magic that can enhance any story. Fellini engages himself in the visual powers of cinema, but forgets the audience should feel something beyond the “ooh’s” and “ahh’s” he so often attracts. To get back to my first point, I don’t have a problem with Fellini immersing himself in a project so wholeheartedly. I understood the message he was conveying, and it was a pleasure to witness. But the best films have a way of revealing themselves while also providing some sort of emotional attachment, which Juliet of the Spirits unfortunately lacked.

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Watching “Juliet of the Spirits” again, detached from the notion that “Fellini was God,” was an interesting experience. I found myself rooting the whole time for Giulietta to escape the wretched picture. I sense that half her agony may not have been acting. I saw a real tear or two escape that beautiful aging artichoke face with potato hair, and I got to thinking. Fellini’s “love letter” to Masina might be about just that, and maybe it works. I might have still loved it, possibly hated it—honestly I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter. Moments moved me to tears, moments could be replaced with reels from a Kenneth Anger film. Those moments were… a little too deliberate. Psychedelic free association in the wrong context is laughable, and this film stretches your patience. But boy is Giulietta Masina a sight to behold—surely one of the greatest screen actors who ever lived, and here she is a little extinguished, a little sad, and it breaks your heart to see her squirm under her husband’s direction.

But through its troubles, which were a new thing for Fellini in 1965, I think “Juliet of the Spirits” is a mandatory viewing for any fan of the great Italian director. It’s not immortally beautiful, like the unremitting humanity thats so obvious in “La Dolce Vita” or “La Strada.” Rather, it is cracked and porous, and its indulgence and mistakes expose some of the mystery behind Fellini’s style. You think, “if he had only done a little less here, this could have been a knockout,” and the aggravation with the director (husband) deepens your sympathy for the actor (wife). Giulietta walks through, and survives alone, a movie that essentially festers then crumbles (in that order) around her. Something about that dynamic makes me feel that brilliant or arrogant, good or bad, “Juliet of the Spirits” is a really great film. A masterpiece that dies on itself, and a necessary companion to its autobiographical predecessors “8 1/2” and “La Dolce Vita.”

Federico Fellini’s surreal, beautiful, philosophical, confessional masterwork about the doubts plaguing a woman (Giulietta Masina, his wife) whose happiness begins to diminish after she begins to fear her husband (Mario Pusi) is having an affair, and seeks comfort in her lively neighbor (Sandra Milo). The lovely Masina gives a truly masterful performance, enchanting the viewer while holding his attention at all times, despite whatever wonders also fill the screen, and the introduction of her character is one of the great masterpieces of cinema. This was Fellini’s first film an color, and he takes complete advantage of the new medium with heavy, bright colors, lavish sets, otherworldly costumes, and unusual fantasies. It might just be the most sumptuous and visually striking film he ever made. Masina and Fellini were most likely having marital issues at the time, and, similar to his previous film, 8 1/2, used this movie as a way to simultaneously exorcise their demons and reveal the process that these issues took root and grew to the audience. Unmissable.

I expected this to be much more ‘enchanting,’ and was disappointed. None of the dream imagery seemed genuine, it seemed forced and unnatural, like what a very boring, unimaginative person would come up with if forced to think of something “surreal.” Giullietta Masina was hard for me to take in this film because she was so stiff and emotionless (and prudish,) but maybe that was Fellini’s commentary on Stepfordism or something. I did enjoy the trash elements; the grotesque neighbor was without a doubt the most interesting character—but not enough to compensate for the whole film, which I had to force myself to finish.

This film frightened me. Not in the typical sense but in a visceral, almost sub-conscious manner. Despite the day-glo eye blinding candy color palette, the relaxing and pleasant soundtrack by Nino Rota and steady pace of the movie, I was scared.

Federico Fellini had managed to completely tap into and show middle-class living at its apex. He had perfectly portrayed the doldrums of being isolated in an upper-class home, of being trapped in tacky surroundings with people going just as mad as you. He had shown the vivd imagination we all have in that boredom and fatality of being trapped, trapped in fakery and bogusness.

My heart went out to Juliet. To Juliet and her suffering; it’s no wonder her mind begins to unravel and her inventions of the mind torment her. And the worst part of it all is that the only blockade to freedom is the individual. Giulietta Masina does a turn by not doing a Gelsomina from La Strada or Cabiria the prositute. Here she is a wealthy intalian housewife with lots of freetime, servants, gossip birds and strange fantasies that she refuses to come to terms with. Also, she suspects that her husband is cheating on her and the past comes to haunt her. Truly, Juliet does not need her husband, her furnishings, her so-called friends, her mansion, her clothes, bri-nylon wigs and gowns. Yet she remains, stuck, with no way to escape. Perhaps that is why her “spirits” constantly taunt her. The exit is right out her front door and still…

Despite all this, ‘Juliet of the Spirits’ is an extraordinary looking film. Sometimes it reaches near-psychadelia in terms of decor but the feel is still very understated and low-key. Maybe it’s the very relaxed pacing, where the audience seems to be floating along with Fellini to the tunes of Nino Rota and the sets of Danilo Donati (clarification here…am not sure if he did the sets and stuff).

The beautiful sets and places….though there is a very symbolic and literal use of color in the film unlike any other. In later films it’s clear that Fellini begins to use the many shades of the rainbow in subtler ways. That fact may be the only way to tell that this Fellini’s first explosive forray into color film but let’s be honest, he has no problem with it and is delirious with the effect of color.

Color is an effect, and he is quite aware of this fact. Perhaps it’s the content of the film, maybe it’s the time. In any case, none of his films, and, arguably, any film, look like Juliet of the Spirits. Then again, it is one of the best restored of the later Fellini films, along with Satyricon which also has similar ethereal and bold colors. It’s like staring in a rainbow vortex; if you look at it for too long it’ll suck you in. fortunately, there is escape.

Both literal and metaphorical, Juliet’s neighbor, Suzy, a sort of mystical girl who seems to enjoy giving love away for free, is not truly an ideal, but is simply another spirit, like Bishma, and Iris. It’s no mistake that Sandra Milo portrays both the spirit and the dancer in Juliet’s memories.
Repeatedly viewing the film, you realize that it has cast its spell on you. Like the sangria it presents, it quenches all who drink it.

Fellini’s wildly flamboyant, ostentatious psychosis of a woman (Giulietta Masina) trying to break free from the literal spirits that haunt her. An abstract circus of lurid grotesques and fanciful seductresses, weaving outrageous characters and ornate surroundings into a haunting dream world that seems more and more apparent to take place entirely within Juliet’s consciousness, pulling at her every which way as she struggles to cope with her husband’s seemingly adulterous lifestyle. Glamorously showy costumes and lavish sets help to create Fellini’s surrealistic portraiture, a highly symbolic and sometimes overly cloudy expression of the feminine psyche. Truly a fierce ride.