Juliet of the Spirits (1965)

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

There's that moment when you're very exhausted before sleep, maybe you're intoxicated or just overworked and underloved. Vivid images surface in the mind's eye. That's Juliet of the Spirits. Fellini touches the senses with both hands -- playing with light and color, things appear unexpectedly, and right when you expect them, they vanish. Everything moves quickly, with opulence.The eponymous Juliet lives a comfortable financial life, but that's about all that's comfortable. Her mom is a certified ice queen and her dad is a nut. Women around her are always losing weight at the behest of "directors", she has a blonde neighbor who oozes sex and all Juliet wants is to get the glow back in her eyes. Her husband, though good-natured enough, is busy and distracted, and worse, he says the name of another woman while sleeping -- the haunting syllables, "Gabriella".Then, Bishma, a clairvoyant, rolls into town. Juliet is summoned to Bishma alone with the question of her husband's fidelity. I had high hopes for the Bishma, but they turned out to be kind of a sub-par prophet, telling Juliet that she needs to please her husband better and suggesting a pair of black fishnets. Juliet holds her own until she loses it and starts having visions of pulse-quickening women in ceiling swings and atop horses. She does get a heartening omen upon her final exit from Bishma's pad: "a good and beautiful change will come tonight".Turns out Bishma is not the false prophet one might have thought. A handsome stranger shows up in Juliet's garden and prepares an elixir -- sangria -- which the Bishma name dropped in their final word. Juliet finds a cat with a bow around it's neck. She adopts some artistic, spiritual and sexual advisors who make her ride bikes through the rain. Her visions grow ever more powerful. She experiences things; she gets liberated.Juliet of the Spirits is a circus. You're in for tons of delightfully frilly headgear, impertinent canoodling, quoting of Lorca, private investigators, catholic-guilt-driven apparitions and magic telescopes. Very nice on the eyes.

This is in fact the first Fellini feature film that I've watched. Basically i was expecting a weird and psychological film, and it delivered exactly what i was expecting plus an excellent soundtrack and great cinematography. It's a work of a genius in my opinion. It has a very slow start, but it is very important, because it shows how 'boring' and sad the life of the protagonist is and how her life works. She is a repressed woman, who never had any liberties on hislife because of the rigid authoritarian education that their parents raised her into. And the story really starts when she started to become suspicious of her husband, that probably is in an extramarital affair. And the story just became weirder and weirder at each scene. But then is also when you start to really get the meaning of all the crazy hallucinations.What i found fantastic was the way the hallucinations are presented in the film. The editing is purposely made in a way that we can't distinguish what is fantasy and what is really happening in the life of Julliete. Just after a while you really get what is happening. A different approach than in the other films of that subject, which made clear to the viewer what is real and what is pure fantasy created by the character. The cinematography and art direction are phenomenal. The beauty and the horror in the images are at same time fascinating and repulsive. Unbelievable. A work of a master, i must say. Because it's exactly what the protagonist think about the images as well. At the same time she wanted to live in the luxury, sinful way, but she as well learned that this kind of life it's wrong and despicable. The soundtrack by the great Nino Rota just adds to it, of course. Definitely a work of art! 9.6/10

Incredibly beautiful this film is, Fellini's first use of colour results in some of the best use of it ever committed to celluloid. With striking design and chic outfits to die for. Unbelievable hats. A witty and playful score, full of 60's European eccentricity.Many scenes are wonderfully conceived and made. Much is sexy - and fun. Fellini himself described "Guiletta of the Spirits" as a 'fairy tale for adults'. However, all of it is one long (I mean over-long long), narrative-free zone, a mishmash of supposedly Guilletta Masina's (Fellini's wife and long standing lead in many of his films) dreams and fantasies. She, as the overlooked wife of husband, played by Mario Pisu, who incidentally played Fellini in the previous film, the autobiographical 8 and a half, finds herself bored, becoming frumpy and unloved. Her friends are younger, sexually active and liberated and she, naturally is envious and frustrated.The actual events of Guilletta's life and her friendship get ever more blurred into fantasy and as the film progresses, this turns into either a self-indulgent slurry of incomprehensible images or dreams of utter beauty and imagination, depending on where your viewpoint stands - and indeed, where the film veers you.The thoughts and fantasies aren't all pleasant and dreamy; paranoid delusions appearing and telling her (the "Spirits" of the title, perhaps) that her husband is cheating on her and that her comfortable life is no longer quite so. Guilletta's acting in previous films had been outstanding, making them unforgettable and truly great. I'm not saying her acting skills are diminished in this, just that it's swamped by all the over-the-top sets and scenes that focus on the fantasy and not her.This viewing was my second and I was fairly determined to follow it and fathom what it all meant. No chance! Let it slip by and enjoy and appreciate the bits you like best. It's also a fairly common belief that the fantasies are Fellini's own and he used this vehicle as an outlet for them. Maybe, after inundating us so successfully and brilliantly in 8 and a half with his own inadequacies, feelings and complexes, found he had yet more that he simply had to get out of his system.Whatever was going through this genius of a director at the time, the film is a must for Fellini fans. For anybody else and especially those who haven't seen the likes of Il Bidone, La Strada, La Dolce Vita and Nights of Cabiria, watch them first. Then you might have a chance to understand - and follow, this master finally losing it. He does so brilliantly but brilliance without substance can get wearying after a while. Practically any other director doing the same would result in a total dud.In my view, a very flawed masterpiece. A contradiction in terms? Well, it is Federico Fellini we're talking about!

Fellini, after his two 1960s famous productions, LA DOLCE VITA and 8 1/2, made GIULIETTA DEGLI SPIRITI (1965), not only his first color film but a unique surreal work at various levels of analysis. While the two earlier movies dealt with the psyche of the male characters portrayed by Marcello Mastroianni, this movie deals with the psyche of a middle aged wealthy woman portrayed by Giulietta Masina, not only an actress - someone much more important: Fellini's wife who was at his side throughout his career. Yet, this is the film where Fellini becomes pretty vague, psychedelic towards viewers, but, at the same time, very friendly and sympathetic towards Giulietta. When I saw this film as a 17 year-old youngster, I did not like it. Now, however, when I see it again after 12 years, it appears much more artistic and clearer to me.This is a sort of film that real connoisseurs of art will find ambiguous. Its entire content as well as its core idea have been, for all these 42 years, a true mystery: why the odd experience of the main character's mind affects us so powerfully, so magically? Fellini does not give final answers, he never does in his movies, he never forces us to like him - he invites us for the journey to the psyche. He introduces to us a profound insight into the very peripheries of a mind of the main character. Giulietta (Giulietta Masina) copes with a problem: her husband Giorgio (Mario Pisu) has a mistress. Some advise her to be a temple of love for her husband, some tell her to relax and ignore that, some prompt her to make more weird fun of life, to let out desires: these are the spirits who visit her, the spirits of her past and, supposedly, her presence. The transfers from reality are sometimes fluent, yet sometimes vague. We see various images derived from Giulietta's imagination where Fellini becomes very erotic like in his later work SATYRICON and uniquely egocentric like in no other of his movies. He claimed to have taken LSD before filming some scenes and therefore, the movie is at times extremely weird and pretty terrifying.Because of its purely Felliniesque nature characterized as blending reality and fantasy, GIULIETTA DEGLI SPIRITI is not for everyone. It's, similarly to 8 1/2, rather a PSYCHOLOGY than LINEAR CONTENT and STORY. There are flashbacks, there are dreams, there are, foremost, fantasies. Moreover, this is yet another time Fellini has manifested his opinion about an individual within a decadent society. He seems to criticize social situations, its noise that looks for rest in magic and sensation. Meanwhile, he identifies with the characters, he understands them. It's at the same time, a biographical movie where, again, Fellini attempts at addressing the conscience of forgiveness to the female character in a marriage. Therefore, such short comments will never discuss the movie justly because it has to be deeply analyzed.All those are resembled in many beautifully photographed scenes. For instance, I'll never forget the first 40 minutes of the film when we have a clear presentation of the characters and events of everyday life that have a serious impact on Giulietta's psyche. She is preparing a romantic party on the wedding anniversary; yet, her husband invites many noisy people to their house: various people, all bored with their wealth looking for more ecstasies. She does not show anger nor dissatisfaction and says to herself in the mirror: "At least don't be led to crying!" In Giulietta's house, they organize a meeting where they call spirits who post messages: "love for all" or "harlot" addressed to one lady whose aim in life is to sculpt, cook and make love. There is also a message for Giulietta: "Poor child, no one cares for you!" From this moment, Giulietta feels lost. She takes the words seriously and this leads her to a series of mental states that bring her to the very edge of hope, the very peripheries of mind; yet finally to a beautiful catharsis. Here, I would mention the character of Jose (Jose Luis De Villalonga), Giorgio's friend who offers Giulietta the drink, Sangria, and who gives her a beautiful advice about simplicity and water.The performances are brilliant. Giulietta Masina does something really extraordinary in this movie. It is the third Fellini's movie after LA STRADA and NIGHTS OF CABIRIA where she was cast in the lead and here, we clearly see a mature woman absorbed by the naiveness of a child. She partly reflects Gelsomina and partly Cabiria; yet, Giulietta is neither the LA STRADA nor NIGHTS OF CABIRIA character: she is unique. In my opinion, Masina's Giulietta is one of the very best female roles in the history of cinema. Other great cast are Valentina Cortese as magic-absorbed Valentina, Sandra Milo as sensual woman of fantasies Suzy, Mario Pisu as the unfaithful husband and Lou Gilbert as the grandfather.There is, however, a harmful aspect of the movie, too. What I mean by "harmful" is that the whole story does not have a more profound development of the consequence, a "moral" that always makes art more "ordered" and "available" for human mind and thought. Creativeness of order leads to harmony of art and Fellini ignores that in the movie. There is a cry for the reference to the sublime self assessment of human mind and actions. Why does Giulietta regain hope? What is the gist of those spirits in a life? What is the power of her psyche? Such questions may appear after seeing the film and may leave a viewer confused at times.All in all, this is an important movie, a truly Felliniesque one. Although it is not my favorite work of the director, GIULIETTA DEGLI SPIRITI is, undeniably, a work of art thanks to its uniqueness, its performances, photography and direction.