Juliet of the Spirits is a fantastical showcase for Federico Fellini's vibrant imagery, starring his wife, Giulietta Masina, as the titular leading character. Juliet is a wealthy housewife who constantly fears her husband, Giorgio (Mario Pisu), is cheating on her. While she yearns for a peaceful intimate evening on the night of their 15th anniversary, the egotistical Giorgio has forgotten about it and instead arrives home with his eccentric friends. After a trip to a séance, Juliet is haunted by
images from the spirit world, including obsessions from her past involving religion and her late relatives. With her sisters and mother prying into her life, Juliet seems to be seeking an inner peace amidst all the sexual temptations surrounding her. She meets her neighbor, Suzy (Sandra Milo), a showy pleasure-seeker who lives in a sensual playhouse. It appears that all of Juliet'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. The reasons for Juliet's repression are not clearly defined by the narrative, despite glimpses into her supposed imagination. Forced to endure the constant bombardment of sexually charged imaginings, the demure Juliet retreats on her own. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi
A mad, resplendent peacock of a film, a cinematographic riot of color and sensuality that evokes its era -- the swinging mid-'60s -- as much as any movie made during those giddy years.
Fellini went deliriously and brilliantly bananas with the color to create a rollicking through-the- looking-glass series of tableaus evoking a woman's troubled psyche.
It is arguably Fellini's most personal masterpiece, but those who may have stumbled upon it and don't know much about Fellini's films most certainly couldn't choose a better one to start with.
"My wife thinks I'm cheating (and I am, I'm a great artist, I belong to everyone, how can anyone expect me to stay with only one, even my wife?) so I'll make a film, a great film ... it's about a wife who thinks her husband is cheating. Who do I get to play the wife? My wife, of course. It's so twisted, so vain,
they'll call it genius."It may not be true, but its what I thought watching this empty exercise in visual overstimulation: this is the lie a cheating husband tells his loyal spouse.
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