I used to think I hated Fellini movies. This was thanks to some of his surreal movies of the 60s and early 70s. These are among his most famous and so I am wondering if I am some sort of Neanderthal because I am either indifferent to them or hate them (such as SATYRICON). However, in recent years I have seen several Fellini films I loved--such as Amarcord and Il Bidone among others.
The surreal aspects of 8 1/2 and LA DULCE VITA are present, but restrained. However, with follow-up films like JULIET OF THE SPIRITS and FELLINI SATYRICON, the movies just got more and more and more bizarre and self-indulgent. I suppose they were well-made technically, but I just disliked the VERY bizarre elements and found, for me, they just didn't have much of a payoff for watching them--plus after a while, they just seem overwhelming and tiresome. It was just weird with no apparent purpose. This is actually rather odd, because I really like paintings by Dali and Bosch. But viewing one of these Surrealist paintings is different than spending 90 plus minutes being bombarded with occasionally incoherent images as in these movies.
Juliet of the Spirits actually has very few "normal" moments, as it has a lot of the supernatural, weird imagery and symbolism starting about 10 minutes into the movie. According to IMDb, Fellini claimed to have taken LSD when making this movie. This is very easy to believe!
The weird images are indeed weird, but the "sexy" images and salacious aspects of the film seem very tame by today's standards. In other words, the characters in the movie talk A LOT about sex, but never seem to get around to having any! So, apart from a few random boobies thrown in towards the end, this is not an especially sexy movie about sex and desire.
It's very interesting that the lead in the movie is Fellini's wife, Giulietta Masina. This is because according to the DVD notes from Criterion, this story was a not far from life representation of the Fellini marriage--complete with infidelity by Federico and a strong love of mysticism and spiritualism by Messina. So, it's very hard to tell how much of this is a "tell all" about the Fellinis and how much is fiction.
It's also very interesting because I wonder if Fellini's casting of his wife might represent some sort of not-too-well repressed hostility on his part. For example, the team of Fellini (directing) and Giulietta Masina (leading lady) brought us Nights of Cabiria (where she played a prostitute), La Strada (where she was a waif who was beaten and verbally abused throughout the film) and Juliet of the Spirts (where she is a woman married to an unfaithful man). Even Dali's muse, Gala, was occasionally painted as the Virgin Mary among the thousands of paintings that featured her!
For those of you who love Fellini or have a very high tolerance for this sort of material, you may just love this film. However, the average viewer will most likely be bored by the film. It earned a 3 SOLELY for the beautiful color camera-work plus I threw in an extra point for Masina because I felt sorry for her.
The surreal aspects of 8 1/2 and LA DULCE VITA are present, but restrained. However, with follow-up films like JULIET OF THE SPIRITS and FELLINI SATYRICON, the movies just got more and more and more bizarre and self-indulgent. I suppose they were well-made technically, but I just disliked the VERY bizarre elements and found, for me, they just didn't have much of a payoff for watching them--plus after a while, they just seem overwhelming and tiresome. It was just weird with no apparent purpose. This is actually rather odd, because I really like paintings by Dali and Bosch. But viewing one of these Surrealist paintings is different than spending 90 plus minutes being bombarded with occasionally incoherent images as in these movies.
Juliet of the Spirits actually has very few "normal" moments, as it has a lot of the supernatural, weird imagery and symbolism starting about 10 minutes into the movie. According to IMDb, Fellini claimed to have taken LSD when making this movie. This is very easy to believe!
The weird images are indeed weird, but the "sexy" images and salacious aspects of the film seem very tame by today's standards. In other words, the characters in the movie talk A LOT about sex, but never seem to get around to having any! So, apart from a few random boobies thrown in towards the end, this is not an especially sexy movie about sex and desire.
It's very interesting that the lead in the movie is Fellini's wife, Giulietta Masina. This is because according to the DVD notes from Criterion, this story was a not far from life representation of the Fellini marriage--complete with infidelity by Federico and a strong love of mysticism and spiritualism by Messina. So, it's very hard to tell how much of this is a "tell all" about the Fellinis and how much is fiction.
It's also very interesting because I wonder if Fellini's casting of his wife might represent some sort of not-too-well repressed hostility on his part. For example, the team of Fellini (directing) and Giulietta Masina (leading lady) brought us Nights of Cabiria (where she played a prostitute), La Strada (where she was a waif who was beaten and verbally abused throughout the film) and Juliet of the Spirts (where she is a woman married to an unfaithful man). Even Dali's muse, Gala, was occasionally painted as the Virgin Mary among the thousands of paintings that featured her!
For those of you who love Fellini or have a very high tolerance for this sort of material, you may just love this film. However, the average viewer will most likely be bored by the film. It earned a 3 SOLELY for the beautiful color camera-work plus I threw in an extra point for Masina because I felt sorry for her.