Juliet of the Spirits (1965)

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

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.

Maybe this film was shocking and avant-garde in its day, but try sitting through this thing today and you'll find it mind-numbingly dull, self-conscious and embarrassingly over- indulgent. Putting aside all the visual tropes that take up the majority of this film's achingly long 137 minutes and examining the plot, the idea of a woman questioning her life and whether to endure a cheating husband dovetailed nicely with the emerging women's movement of the time. We're over it. We get it. We recognize that women are smarter than that. No need to read more into it than what we see here on screen, which is pretty shallow and way too artsy. For a much better take on the same subject, see Paul Mazursky's 1978 "An Unmarried Woman." The one redeeming feature of "Juliet of the Spirits" is the lively score by Nino Rota which may possibly keep the viewer from dozing off.

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

Juliet of the Spirits (1965)*** 1/2 (out of 4) Surreal classic has a wife (Guilietta Masina) fearing that her husband might be cheating on her. A group of spirits then try to convince her that she's better than the husband treats her and that she should leave him. This film has so much going for it that it was rather hard trying to keep track of all of it in my first viewing. I think the story is incredibly strong, as are the performances and the visual look. The surreal nature Fellini brings to the movie is top-notch and his first color movie certainly delivers one very impressive look. I think the story itself is probably the most important aspect because it's strong enough to hold up during all the strange visuals and other surreal things going on. Had the story been weak then I think it would have fallen and taken a back seat to all the visual stuff but since it didn't it just made the film twice as strong because we could care for the wife and feel her pain as everything breaks loose. Masina's performance is incredibly strong and I can't help but wonder why she didn't get more critical acclaim when the movie first came out. The way her character is at the start of the film compared to it at the end really makes it appear like two different characters. It's rather amazing to see how much the character changes from scene to scene yet Masina never slips into anything corny or unbelievable. She's perfect from start to finish as is Sandra Milo as her neighbor. The visuals in the film are all remarkable and the deep colors really jump off the screen and help create a surreal and fake like world. The cinematography and score are also perfectly done with one of my favorite shots being when Masina is at her husband's lovers house and goes to get on the phone with her. The shot is very simple and I'm not sure how many people would have noticed it but the camera pans to the left and instead of keeping the phone in the center of the frame, the director puts it in the far right. Why did this stick out so much to me? I'm sure I could over analyze it but I'll just leave it at saying it was refreshing not to see what most directors would do and keep the central character, in this case the phone, dead in the center. I wouldn't say the film is without flaws as I found the 137-minute running time to be a tad bit long but this is still a very impressive film that people should check out.