The title is a reference to a line in T. S. Eliot's poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" that reads: "I have heard the mermaids singing each to each / I do not think that they will sing to me." It's about an underdog, an artsy misfit with a good heart that overcomes her inferiority and beguiles the mermaids to sing to her. It's not a perfect film but it has spunk and an indie feel - it's also the first feature for director Patricia Rozema who also wrote the screenplay. It's finally been released on DVD 18 years after its debut in Canada - it garnered a standing ovation at Cannes. A wonderful world to visit for 80 minutes with a great character played by the quirky and likable Sheila McCarthy!

Scatterbrained Polly gets a job as a secretary in Gabrielle's art gallery. Gabrielle has a romantic relationship with the painter Mary. Polly hangs a picture by Mary believing that Gabrielle made it. Source

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This film is the most beautifully shot ever by the master Bertolucci. A pure delight for the eyes with deft political and pychological commentary.

This story opens in 1938 in Rome, where Marcello has just taken a job working for Mussollini and is courting a beautiful young woman who will make him even more of a conformist. Marcello is going to Paris on his honeymoon and his bosses have an assignment for him there. Look up an old professor who fled Italy when the fascists came into power. At the border of Italy and France, where Marcello and his bride have to change trains, his bosses give him a gun with a silencer. In a flashback to 1917, we learn why sex and violence are linked in Marcello's mind. Source

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Lindsay Anderson's If.... is like a lighter but more direct version of Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange with the mischievous Malcolm McDowell playing the protagonist in both films. In Anderson's film, however, you understand more fully why McDowell's character Mick Travis is the way he is. Your frustration and rage grow until you're relieved and horrified at the same time by the ending.

The fundamental question the film poses takes place in Mick's history class: were the atrocities of the past the fault of a lone dictator or the collective result of everyone in the society? As time goes on it seems pretty obvious that given an extremely stressful environment, most people would still follow a Hitler-like character without a second thought and gladly scapegoat whatever problems exist on a sacrificial lamb. Hitler is more of a symbol of collective rotten-ness than a lone catalyst for atrocity although society doesn't want that to be so. You know, it may be obvious but you can't treat all children poorly an expect them all to be well adjusted. We create our Hitlers and Columbines and until we admit this it will happen over and over.

If.... is a classic rebellion and social commentary film that also makes one feel free and trapped simultaneously and it's an enjoyable ride!

In an indictment of the British Boys School, we follow Mick and his mostly younger friends through a series of indignities and occasionally abuse as any fond feelings toward these schools are destroyed. When Mick and his friends rebel, violently, the catch phrase, "which side would you be on" becomes quite stark. Source

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Fellini's Juliet of the Sprits is my favorite film of his although I'm definitely in the minority on this. It's Fellini's greatest film b/c it finds him at his most experimental but least abstruse. It's surreal but the striking visuals are simply Juliet's inner world externalized and with that you get a interesting depiction of the inner world of a trapped woman. Juliet is not physically trapped but psychologically - but the film documents her escape to freedom.

There are lots of colorful (literally as this was Fellini's first color film and it shows visually) characters and inventively choreographed scenes. The cast dances across the screen, literally and figuratively and each scene seems to be caused by the drinking of some ambrosia-like liquid by Juliet. The film is sad but also hopeful and full of wonderment about a life that can be tragic and uncontrollable. Yes, this is definitely my favorite but all of Fellini's other works are incredible too.

Giulietta degli spiriti (1965) analyzes the identity crisis of identity of a middle-aged Italian housewife, almost a female counterpart to Guido, in Fellini's first color feature film. One of the first postwar Italian films about women's social status in Italian culture, it is structured after the story line of 8½. Giulietta's (Giulietta Masina) quest for psychic freedom is impeded by both her philandering husband and the critical, reprimanding women (her mother and sisters) who surround her. Her gift for seeing spirits summons a passel of them, all ghosts from her past with whom she must reconcile. Source

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