One puzzle which remains unresolved for most viewers of 8 1/2 is the meaning of "asa nisi masa" "Say the magic words, then when the picture moves its eyes, we'll all be rich." The words derive from a children’s game, like pig latin, in which one takes a word, doubles each of its vowels and then puts the letter "s" between the two. So, run backwards, the root word is "anima," the Italian word for soul or spirit. Daumier dismisses all this as another idle childhood memory, devoid of all poetic inspiration. Yet in the film the utterance of "asa nisi masa" works like magic, releasing the marvelous flow of the joyful life of the farmhouse scene. And the childish promise is hardly idle; for it was indeed when the picture moved its eye—when Fellini found his true métier in motion picture—that we all became enriched.