L'Avventura (1960)
Country: IT/FR
Technical: bw 145m
Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
Cast: Monica Vitti, Lea Massari, Gabriele Ferzetti
Synopsis:
A couple goes away with rich friends on a sailing trip and the fiancée disappears on a visit to one of the rocky Aeolian islands. The man is joined in his search for her by her best friend, with whom he almost immediately attempts to start a sexual relationship. Her natural compunction initially prevents her from doing so, but as they roam through Sicily following leads that go nowhere her feelings of bereavement turn to the desire for solace, then anxiety and confusion.
Review:
A beautifully made film which is also an infuriating one if one approaches it expecting the mystery to be resolved. Its preoccupations go well beyond any trite 'boy loses girl, boy finds girl' scenario to the themes of alienation and moral decline the director saw as the inevitable corollaries of post-war prosperity among the middle classes. The characters are incapable of forming a meaningful relationship because of their lack of a moral compass: Claudia desperately seeks clarity and guidance but winds up with the most inconstant and vain man on the planet, who in turn has no sense of respect for himself or others (the key scenes of his confession of having given up his professional dreams for easy consultancy money, and of his knocking over the ink bottle onto the architectural sketch.) The film brought a new visual language to international attention, characterised by long takes and sequences in which characters move and discourse without actually producing meaningful action, hence the impression of a narrative that does not move forward; however, their impotence is at odds with their material wealth and that is the point. L'Avventura is full of images of transience: the first piece of dialogue concerns a townscape that is about to be spoilt; Anna's disappearance has to be read as death; summer is changing to a windy autumn; Sandro's buildings are only built to last ten or twenty years. We are left with an image of broken manhood and feminine pity at a loss against a blank wall and a distant island on an empty sea.
Country: IT/FR
Technical: bw 145m
Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
Cast: Monica Vitti, Lea Massari, Gabriele Ferzetti
Synopsis:
A couple goes away with rich friends on a sailing trip and the fiancée disappears on a visit to one of the rocky Aeolian islands. The man is joined in his search for her by her best friend, with whom he almost immediately attempts to start a sexual relationship. Her natural compunction initially prevents her from doing so, but as they roam through Sicily following leads that go nowhere her feelings of bereavement turn to the desire for solace, then anxiety and confusion.
Review:
A beautifully made film which is also an infuriating one if one approaches it expecting the mystery to be resolved. Its preoccupations go well beyond any trite 'boy loses girl, boy finds girl' scenario to the themes of alienation and moral decline the director saw as the inevitable corollaries of post-war prosperity among the middle classes. The characters are incapable of forming a meaningful relationship because of their lack of a moral compass: Claudia desperately seeks clarity and guidance but winds up with the most inconstant and vain man on the planet, who in turn has no sense of respect for himself or others (the key scenes of his confession of having given up his professional dreams for easy consultancy money, and of his knocking over the ink bottle onto the architectural sketch.) The film brought a new visual language to international attention, characterised by long takes and sequences in which characters move and discourse without actually producing meaningful action, hence the impression of a narrative that does not move forward; however, their impotence is at odds with their material wealth and that is the point. L'Avventura is full of images of transience: the first piece of dialogue concerns a townscape that is about to be spoilt; Anna's disappearance has to be read as death; summer is changing to a windy autumn; Sandro's buildings are only built to last ten or twenty years. We are left with an image of broken manhood and feminine pity at a loss against a blank wall and a distant island on an empty sea.
Country: IT/FR
Technical: bw 145m
Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
Cast: Monica Vitti, Lea Massari, Gabriele Ferzetti
Synopsis:
A couple goes away with rich friends on a sailing trip and the fiancée disappears on a visit to one of the rocky Aeolian islands. The man is joined in his search for her by her best friend, with whom he almost immediately attempts to start a sexual relationship. Her natural compunction initially prevents her from doing so, but as they roam through Sicily following leads that go nowhere her feelings of bereavement turn to the desire for solace, then anxiety and confusion.
Review:
A beautifully made film which is also an infuriating one if one approaches it expecting the mystery to be resolved. Its preoccupations go well beyond any trite 'boy loses girl, boy finds girl' scenario to the themes of alienation and moral decline the director saw as the inevitable corollaries of post-war prosperity among the middle classes. The characters are incapable of forming a meaningful relationship because of their lack of a moral compass: Claudia desperately seeks clarity and guidance but winds up with the most inconstant and vain man on the planet, who in turn has no sense of respect for himself or others (the key scenes of his confession of having given up his professional dreams for easy consultancy money, and of his knocking over the ink bottle onto the architectural sketch.) The film brought a new visual language to international attention, characterised by long takes and sequences in which characters move and discourse without actually producing meaningful action, hence the impression of a narrative that does not move forward; however, their impotence is at odds with their material wealth and that is the point. L'Avventura is full of images of transience: the first piece of dialogue concerns a townscape that is about to be spoilt; Anna's disappearance has to be read as death; summer is changing to a windy autumn; Sandro's buildings are only built to last ten or twenty years. We are left with an image of broken manhood and feminine pity at a loss against a blank wall and a distant island on an empty sea.