In this film, Fellini shows Juliet the life of a married woman in a bourgeois family. It shows her various experiences, memories, fantasies and complex psychology, as well as her relationship with other people, shows her family crisis, interpersonal crisis and self crisis, but also shows her dream subconscious world and her the social environment in which they live.
Taking marriage and family relationship as the main clue, the film shows the hypocrisy, lies, spiritual and moral depravity and corruption formed on the basis of this marriage and family relationship. Juliet's family is a bourgeois family. She and her husband own a villa on the famous Frejne beachfront, which is not something the average family can do, and shows that they are materially wealthy. Spiritually, Juliet is loyal to her husband, and she regards her relationship with her husband as "he is for me, I am for him, and he is everything to me". On their wedding anniversary, she wanted to surprise her husband and make him happy. And the husband also seemed to want to surprise her by bringing so many friends to celebrate. It seems that this should be a happy family. However, this is all an illusion, not the real thing. In the relationship between her husband and her, the husband does not regard her as a person. He does not even say hello when he goes to work in the morning. He only regards her as his private property, for his enjoyment and for him to play with; he can By keeping her at home regardless of her interests, aspirations and hopes, he could enslave her, insult her, and even deceive her.
There is no love between them. It is precisely because of the lack of love that Juliet is most interested in the "Everybody Got Love" program of that mysterious message-giving event, and she wakes up the next morning with the message in mind. Not only is there a lack of love between them, there's no such thing as a "he-for-me, I-for-him" relationship, but there's a deeper problem that he's cheating on her. Juliet found that her husband was clearly calling Gabriella's name in his sleep. Later, she went directly to Gabriella, hoping to clear up the problem and save the family, but it ended in failure.
Where should the reasons for Juliet's failure be found? Husband's new love, moral corruption, arrogance and blatant deceit are naturally one of the reasons. On the other hand, from Juliet's side, it has long predicted that her efforts will eventually fail. The film describes her origin, her relatives, her childhood and her education. She came from a bourgeois family, her grandfather was a professor, and her grandfather loved her, but she left her granddaughter when she eloped with the actress. Juliet's family as a child was already a broken one. Juliet was sent to parochial school at an early age because her mother sought her pleasure and did not want her little daughter to get in her way. Juliet's mother had no feelings for her, and didn't even bother to say hello to Juliet when they said goodbye. On the one hand, it is such a cold family, on the other hand, it is the education of the church school, so that she only knows "to sacrifice for the saints", even if she is burned to death. Such education and moral norms make her can only tolerate, compromise and self-suppress in life. Her dream of pulling a boat during her seaside nap is a reflection of this depression.
Her struggle and resistance are weak, and she is still seeking some advice for peace when she has clearly figured out her husband's relationship with Gabriella. Her husband packed up and set off. She clearly knew that she was going to find Gabriella, but she still forbeared again and again, did not dare to pierce this layer of window paper, dared not dare to accuse her husband bravely, and still could only suppress herself. It is this kind of self-sacrifice and self-repression that makes the husband who will do whatever he wants more reckless, and it is these that break the family and make Juliet fail. The film's description of marriage breakdown and family disintegration is delicate and profound, and its spearhead points to Juliet's weakness, forbearance, self-repression, as well as the religious education and its moral norms and standards that caused this mental state.
The whole film shows the opposition between two things, two types of characters, and two mental states. These oppositions made Juliet's morbid state to an extreme degree, made her face life and the people around her even more fearful, materialized her subconscious imagination and hallucinations, and turned into a monster, into a elf, into Goblin.
Juliet is a serious person with a serious attitude towards life. However, in real life, she is out of tune with others. Whether it's the people who run the cryptic messaging operation in her house, or the Indian, or the private detective company, it's a stark contrast to Juliet. They can't communicate with Juliet, can't associate, can't understand each other. The more obvious opposition to Juliet is Suzy. Juliet was serious about marriage, while Susie "didn't want to get married at all". She is young and lively and just wants to have fun in this garden. Her fiancé turned out to be an old man who could be her father, but she was satisfied because he "had sex every night" and was "very capable". Not only was she cynical herself, but she also wanted Juliet to be as slutty as she was, by arranging Juliet with a man in a big house. It can be said that Susie is a typical example of openness. On this occasion, Juliet suddenly heard the question of "what are you doing". This was her inner question and a subconscious reaction, so she avoided the man. This proves that she is a self-restrained person. The confrontation or contrast between her and Susie made her feel more deeply that not only did her husband deceive herself, not only did they have no feelings, no communication, no friendship, no love between them, but also the world outside the family, There is also a lack of these things among people in this world, just sex, money relationships, and mutual exploitation based on pleasure.
Therefore, she had hallucinations. Those people in Susie's garden were all ferocious and terrifying, like ghosts, and even the originally beautiful garden was terrifying. In this way, both in Juliet's inner world and the outer world outside her, she had a terrible feeling: no human feeling anywhere, no one, no human relationship, no love , there is no friendship, no beauty, no truth, not even real people, but only spirits, or more accurately ghosts. This is the society in which Juliet lives, her external relations. Such a society made her, who was already self-repressed, even more repressed, suffocated her, and made her intolerable. Therefore, it is not only the unscrupulous husband who is trying to get rid of her and cheating on her, but also the people around her, the outside world, that suffocates Juliet.
So, she said she wanted her husband to abandon her, and Suzy said Juliet "would be free". In the end, the husband left, but Juliet did not feel free and relieved. She was still suffocated and terrified by the terrible scenes and strange people in front of her. This woman who grew up under the bourgeoisie and religious education, despite being able to tolerate and suppress herself, still suffered a heavy blow in the face of marriage and society, and ultimately failed. Her self-forbearance and self-repression are the result of religious education, and the drawback of this kind of education is that her personality is suppressed. Juliet is a classic example of Western education. Her ideals are house, home, husband, god and church, the husband is the master, the wife should be tame, should obey. Such self-forbearance and self-repression embody holiness, which is the antithesis of sin, and which, like sin, also suppresses individuality and originality. There can be no natural love under repression, and no natural emotional expression. Therefore, Juliet's marriage and family will also break down. That is to say, human-to-human relations based on bourgeois and religious morality will eventually collapse. What the film is trying to show is that people should be rescued from interpersonal relationships that hinder normal development, relationships that hinder the natural exchange of feelings between each other.
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