dad1153 wrote:The lack of a stress-relieving liberating denounment (from either Giulietta's husband admitting his affair, her confronting him with the evidence the investigators had gathered of his philandering or a more overt expression of her ridding herself of the visions that plagued her than a gentle walk away from the house and into the woods) to wrap-up the crazy imagery and kooky characters I had just spent over two hours basically tolerating also threw me for a loop.
I think a moment of serene quiet was a perfect way to end this movie, not to mention more thematically appropriate than a melodramatic resolution. One of the major motifs of the film is Juliet's inability to be truly alone. Guido in 8 1/2 has a similar problem, he is constantly hounded by one person or another; but unlike Juliet, he can escape for a brief moment into a fantasy and live an imaginative freedom. Juliet's fantasies conspire against her, they form one more burden to complement the burdens of being the dutiful housewife, the sacrificing daughter, the supportive friend, and whatever other social role is expected of her. Juliet is not only never alone, but never living truly for herself: there is always some sort of chatter making her life restless, some manner of guilt or self-sacrifice expected of her. Even her own considerable imagination becomes a reflection and an extension of her stifling lack of necessary isolation, plaguing her with visions and voices of old psychic wounds and long forgotten duties she is somehow still required to fulfill. Her husband's affair is only one small part of Juliet's total problem: that she lives, and is expected to live, for others rather than for herself. A confrontation with her husband, I feel, would offer no resolution since in a way his philandering was the essential catastrophe to begin Juliet's quest for fulfillment (achieved by an ironic emptying) and so had very positive repercussions. For me, the film's actual resolution is the best one: Juliet achieves silence and solitariness: she can finally be alone with herself, and so she walks out of the gates and off into the forest. I would like to think she finds something soothing in there. It is a moving image of freedom for a movie about social and psychic chains.
zedz wrote:EDIT: just glancing again at dad's last post, I'm with him on the "indulgence", but not on the "self-", and for me that makes all the difference.
I'm actually quite happy with "self-indulgence." I just don't see why everyone insists it's a universal,
a priori negative criticism. Who decided self-sacrifice was the only way to make good art? Some artists flourish when they're indulging the best and most exuberant parts of their self.
. I still don't like anybody else in the movie except for Suzy (Sandra Milo literally sparks the movie to life when she's on) and still wish that the cheating hubby would have been confronted by his wife. But then the walk into the woods (a scene that left me cold the first time) wouldn't have had the subtle-but-powerful impact of a nuclear bomb going off in the once-repressed life of the protagonist. Guess "Juliet..." is now in the middle of the pack of my watched Fellini movies (ahead of "Roma," the 'Toby Dammit' mini-movie and maybe "I Vitelloni") but there's still "La Dolce Vita," "La Strada" and a few others to plow through. Who knows mr. sausage, maybe third time's the charm. 8-) 
