I owe an apology to Fellini....

But first I'll start with the movie I saw before I watched Juliet of the Spirits-which was Children of Men. This movie is emotionally devastating, no way around it. Set in a future where women can't have children anymore and no one knows why, the world has fallen apart. England is mostly in ruins, immigrants are put into camps and and cities around the world are besieged. Theo Farren is a middle class worker in London, who gets drawn into a battle he doesn't want to fight. His ex-wife needs to transport a girl to the coast and she needs Theo's connections to get the transit papers. He agrees to help-and it isn't until he meets the girl that finds out that she's pregnant-and may be the only woman in the world who is. This sets him on path though beauty (his cousin who he asks for help has made mission of rescuing artwork and has both Michelangelo's David and Picasso's Guernica in his office) and horror (the displaced person camp Theo and Kee enter in order to both avoid the people chasing them and to get to the coast to the people who will help them is like one of the circles of hell-a close in circle). This is an amazing movie-it isn't often that I come out of a movie feeling like the director knew exactly what he was doing and was in complete control, but I felt that here. From casually having Guernica on the wall in a very nice room, to using a hand-held camera to shoot a firefight in the camp (complete with blood spattering on the camera lens), Alfonso Cuaron has one of the steadiest hands in running a movie that I've ever seen-it was amazing and there scenes that actually brought tears to my eyes. Clive Owen finally gets to be there hero-a run down, grimy, unhappy hero, but a hero nonetheless. And while the supporting cast is stellar, I would like to single out Michael Caine and Danny Huston as being especially good in extremely different ways. Julianne Moore was good, but honestly, she didn't have much to do. And Clare-Hope Ashitey was very good as Kee. Yes, it was depressing. Yes, it was totally worth it to see it. It makes me very happy to see that even though it hasn't opened in more theaters, it keeps rising in the top ten at the movies-and it's clear that it's because of word of mouth. And don't talk to me about how it's different from the book. Yes, I read the book when it came out and yes, it's different. But it keeps the main idea in focus and it knows the heart of the book-that's what's important. It's rare to see a movie made in such an assured manner and that alone makes it worth seeing-but there's so much more to it than that.

Okay, so here' s why I owe Fellini an apology. I freely admit that after I saw Children of Men, I was planning on going home and watching my Netflix movie-Juliet of the Spirits and I was NOT looking forward to it. Although I loved Children of Men, afterwards I wanted something light and frothy-something that would cheer me up and/or make me laugh and I thought I had seen Juliet of the Spirits on TV many years ago and it was NOT light, cheerful or happy. Luckily, the movie I watched all those years ago (when I was college and flipping through channels late at night) was not the Juliet of the Spirits. While it wasn't always light-hearted and was at times surreal and odd (duh!), I couldn't take my eyes off of it-it was fascinating in a really good way. Giuletta Masina is a middle aged housewife who isn't very happy with her life-her husband may be cheating on her (when she married him young and he's her whole life, as she tells a friend). Her mother and sisters, all tall and beautiful treat her badly and her life is not what she wants it to be. Into her life come her neighbors (I admit that when I first saw these people, I thought they were circus folk-why were they playing around in her yard like that? I thiunk they WERE circus folk). And as this is a surreal story, it was kind of hard to tell what was real and what wasn't in Juliet's various encounters and the only thing I was sure of was that the group of people dressed in monk's/nun's habits were probably not real and were just one of the things in Juliet's past that she needed to get past. This movie isn't for everyone-if you don't have a taste for the slightly weird/bizarre/surreal, this movie is not for you. Juliet's many encounters with episodes from her past make it hard to tell sometimes if it's past or present tense and the symbolism, while clear to some may be confusing to others (I know I could benefit from another viewing of this movie). So Fellini-I'm sorry. I loved this slightly bizarre story of the housewife who needs to overcome her good Catholic girl past, with the help of the circus folk next door (the symbolism of the butterfly attached as art to Valentina Cortese's naked shoulderblades was clear even to me) in order to move on with her life and get rid of her cheating husband. It was tremendously entertaining and a little strange and it made me think. I couldn't have asked for more.