.jeri.

Continuing through the Fellini catalog, I recently gave this movie a go. Wow, it's a tough one. Giulietta (Giulietta Masina) is plain, and there are many lovelier and sexier people surrounding her in her life. At the beginning of the film, Giulietta puts together a fancy dinner for her husband to celebrate their anniversary. He comes home with a flock of friends, and an impromptu party takes place, during which there is a seance. I'm not sure if it's the seance that triggers it, or whether Giulietta just naturally feels like she is a spiritually connected person, but she starts to have visions, and also seeks the advice of a nightmarish (to me) psychic.

Throughout the movie, Giulietta's biggest struggle is what to do regarding her husband. She wakes up one night to hear him speaking fondly in his sleep to a girl named Gabriella. Giulietta hires someone to follow her husband and discover who Gabriella is. She even goes to visit Gabriella at her house, although she only gets to speak with her over the phone. Poor Giulietta. It seems as though everyone around her suggests that it is she who is lacking in character. Some seem to suggest that she should sexy herself up for her husband, while her free-spirited (to say the least) neighbor encourages her to have some fun of her own. Her neighbor's home actually seems to be a fantastical dream, especially since her bedroom has a door that opens up to a slide leading to an indoor pool where she likes to bathe naked.

This is a Fellini movie filled with the surreal. There are so many odd images, visions, and everything in between that at times it's not necessarily a pleasant experience. What it does is capture the inner conflict of Giulietta, whose trouble isn't only with her current situation, but with her past as well. We see distorted memories of her past, which haunt her in her adulthood. The repressed past, her troubled present, her exaggerated acquaintances, and her spiritual interests combine in an awful way to show her mental breakdown/struggle to figure out who she wants to be and what she wants in her life, especially regarding her husband.

The movie is a success in the sense that it does what it sets out to accomplish. The visuals are stunning and memorable, and Masina is pitch perfect in her role. As a matter of fact, Masina was Fellini's wife in real life, which brings an extra layer to the possible themes of this film, and makes her performance all the more interesting. Still, it leans rather heavy on the images and the bizarre, and just goes too far in just about everything to be quite my style. It's for the faint of heart, but I'm sure there are some people out there who would love it.. although I'm pretty sure that would be a smaller population rather than a larger one.