Juliet of the Spirits (1965)
(Giuletta degli Spiriti)
Country: IT
Technical: col 145m
Director: Federico Fellini
Cast: Giulietta Masina, Mario Pisu, Sandra Milo
Synopsis:
Suspecting her husband of seeing another woman, upper bourgeois wife Giulietta turns to her flirtatious neighbour for advice and a firm of private investigators for evidence. However, just as she appears ready to embrace the self-realizing hedonism of her age, she is unable to free herself of the spirits of her past, represented by the ludic innocence of her grandfather and the puritanical, martyrising influence of the mother.
Review:
Touted as the maestro's film portrait of his wife, Giulietta Masina, and therefore the distaff side of Otto e mezzo, this was his first film in colour and is indeed a treat for the eyes, though alas not for the brain. While we might admire the lighting effects, the grand guignol and erotic flourishes, the elaborate sequence shots and asymmetric compositions, we also have the continuation of the mature Fellini, though less reined in, meaning incessant talk from a freak show of charlatans, whores, queers and intellectuals. As in Otto e mezzo, the boundary between real and imagined action is dim, but the effect is less enthralling than in the earlier film, which seemed to be both a meditation on artistic creation and an apology for its author's fickle nature. Quite what he is trying to achieve here is less clear: the deceived wife is portrayed as childlike, pathetic, deranged, a prisoner of her social position and the parasites that come with it, and taking refuge in the censorious attitudes of her education. Not much emancipation there; Sandra Milo gets all the fun. Fellini seems to be saying: here is the cookie shop, but you ain't having any because you have no appetite for cookies.
(Giuletta degli Spiriti)
Country: IT
Technical: col 145m
Director: Federico Fellini
Cast: Giulietta Masina, Mario Pisu, Sandra Milo
Synopsis:
Suspecting her husband of seeing another woman, upper bourgeois wife Giulietta turns to her flirtatious neighbour for advice and a firm of private investigators for evidence. However, just as she appears ready to embrace the self-realizing hedonism of her age, she is unable to free herself of the spirits of her past, represented by the ludic innocence of her grandfather and the puritanical, martyrising influence of the mother.
Review:
Touted as the maestro's film portrait of his wife, Giulietta Masina, and therefore the distaff side of Otto e mezzo, this was his first film in colour and is indeed a treat for the eyes, though alas not for the brain. While we might admire the lighting effects, the grand guignol and erotic flourishes, the elaborate sequence shots and asymmetric compositions, we also have the continuation of the mature Fellini, though less reined in, meaning incessant talk from a freak show of charlatans, whores, queers and intellectuals. As in Otto e mezzo, the boundary between real and imagined action is dim, but the effect is less enthralling than in the earlier film, which seemed to be both a meditation on artistic creation and an apology for its author's fickle nature. Quite what he is trying to achieve here is less clear: the deceived wife is portrayed as childlike, pathetic, deranged, a prisoner of her social position and the parasites that come with it, and taking refuge in the censorious attitudes of her education. Not much emancipation there; Sandra Milo gets all the fun. Fellini seems to be saying: here is the cookie shop, but you ain't having any because you have no appetite for cookies.
(Giuletta degli Spiriti)
Country: IT
Technical: col 145m
Director: Federico Fellini
Cast: Giulietta Masina, Mario Pisu, Sandra Milo
Synopsis:
Suspecting her husband of seeing another woman, upper bourgeois wife Giulietta turns to her flirtatious neighbour for advice and a firm of private investigators for evidence. However, just as she appears ready to embrace the self-realizing hedonism of her age, she is unable to free herself of the spirits of her past, represented by the ludic innocence of her grandfather and the puritanical, martyrising influence of the mother.
Review:
Touted as the maestro's film portrait of his wife, Giulietta Masina, and therefore the distaff side of Otto e mezzo, this was his first film in colour and is indeed a treat for the eyes, though alas not for the brain. While we might admire the lighting effects, the grand guignol and erotic flourishes, the elaborate sequence shots and asymmetric compositions, we also have the continuation of the mature Fellini, though less reined in, meaning incessant talk from a freak show of charlatans, whores, queers and intellectuals. As in Otto e mezzo, the boundary between real and imagined action is dim, but the effect is less enthralling than in the earlier film, which seemed to be both a meditation on artistic creation and an apology for its author's fickle nature. Quite what he is trying to achieve here is less clear: the deceived wife is portrayed as childlike, pathetic, deranged, a prisoner of her social position and the parasites that come with it, and taking refuge in the censorious attitudes of her education. Not much emancipation there; Sandra Milo gets all the fun. Fellini seems to be saying: here is the cookie shop, but you ain't having any because you have no appetite for cookies.