L'Avventura

At some point in the film Monica Vitti turns to her love partner and passionately proclaims "I want to see clearly!". They're standing atop a convent, and saying this, accidentally she tugs on a rope. Bells go off around them. A moment later, from a church in the distance bells ring back an answer.

Wow.

And so finally I arrive at the end of my Antonioni quest going backwards in time from The Passenger, back at the start. This will not be the last of his films that I see, but I feel I've reached a point that enables closure. I'm where it all began, in the craving mind, where all the formations of life and cinema are born. I will rest from my travel here, with the magnitude of this film.

But L'Avventura is famously a mystery of disappearance, so why do I speak in the title of this review of 'appearances'?

Perhaps because, in the aftermath of that disappearance, Antonioni sketches for us the first appearance of desire. Romance in his later films was already stale or not allowed to blossom (it appears again in Zabriskie Point, under a different context), but here feelings are pursued, in an effort to reflect if love can be our saving grace.

That appearance, born in a barren rock in the middle of the sea, rests on a twofold interpretation.

On one level, perhaps in understanding by Anna's inexplicable disappearance the precarious balance in which hangs our fleeting existence, the randomly cruel laws that govern it, the two partners turn to each other for solace. And perhaps more, seeing deep down in their own selves how quick life can be forgotten, how everything we hold to matter ultimately matters little and how this speck of life we value is merely transient and will come to pass, they turn to each other to desperately defy it, to prove to each other and the world that love cannot simply vanish.

Antonioni frames first this realization of transience against the elements of nature, the imperishable, secondly he frames, traps, blocks within the desperate relationship, mostly faces in silhouette, against old medieval buildings, man's folly to mimic the imperishable. This is Antonioni's spatial stroke of genius, the visual vocabulary which he consistently executed for the rest of his career.

But whereas in the subsequent films I was fascinated with the abstraction of human struggle, here I'm also fascinated with the struggle itself of human beings fumbling in the dark. The woman cautious of love at first, then allowing herself to be swept in it, believing if something can make her "see clearly" that it should be love. The man pushing obsessively for that love then, having consummated the need, conquered his prey, losing interest, aimlessly wandering the streets. The sated beast now becomes casually destructive, as we're shown in the scene where for no reason he spills ink over a young man's drawing.

Antonioni fills this with portents and divinations, like the woman's premonition that Anna has returned.

More subtle sketch of the madness of desire is the surreal scene where a mob in the grip of sexual paroxysm gathers in the street to ogle at a beautiful woman. Monica Vitti's character later experiences the same oppressiveness of the "male gaze", yet doesn't feel threatened by it, until her man emerges from a building, at which point she runs and hides.

The finale in this sense is a poignant enigma like few in cinema, the smile of a Mona Lisa. The two lovers, now bitterly broken by how their desire has failed them, stand in a plaza with the view of a mountain in the horizon. The woman lays a hand on the man's head, but is the gesture forgiveness or reproach and is she telling him to stay or absolving him to go?

Rushing back through his career, a chronicle emerges. Here the appearance of desire in the hope that it will liberate, later the failure of that desire to liberate, the willingness to not pursue it at all in L'Eclisse. Later yet, the liberation from desire, the realization in Deserto Rosso that we need to make ourselves whole from within, the chimera of the mind in Blowup and the liberation from it, the chimera of ideas in Zabriskie Point and the liberation from it, until the eventual, stunning to behold emergence of nirvana in The Passenger. A state of awareness where all bonds to clinging and desire are severed, the illusions of ego and identity dissolved, the characters now embracing their transience.

This is why Antonioni matters to me. Not because Kubricks, Polanskis, and Peter Weirs all took from him, planting seeds in the fertile ground of his cinema, and not because he did more for cinema as we know it than all of them together, but because his enduring legacy, mastery of medium, conceptual exploration of ideas, all of this cannot fully account for the experience of the spiritual journey they enable. Which is to say that something elusive exists embedded in the frame, a true perception, that makes his films mysteriously extend into the soul.

Antonioni saw further perhaps than any other director, before or after.

It's been remarked that this is a very visual film, and that unquestionably rings true to me. Michelangelo Antonioni's orchestration of shots and scenes as director, and Aldo Scavarda's cinematography, are terrifically sharp and vivid if not outright arresting, an utter pleasure to behold as a viewer and without a doubt the most consistent aspects of the feature. Eraldo Da Roma's smooth editing comes in a close second behind this pair. The filming locations range from fetching to gorgeous, and in short order other facets like production design, art direction, hair and makeup, and costume design aren't far behind. I don't even rightly know how to describe it, but in its visual presentation 'L'avventura' is uniquely precise, natural, calculated, fluid, and vibrant, all at once, and all the time, in a way that's especially striking. Even at that, I'm not sure that the movie seems so distinct in this regard as to be hailed as a model for all those titles to follow it, yet there can be no doubt that Antonioni and Scavarda in particular prove themselves to be fine craftsmen.

It's important to note the visual presentation right away not only because it's so excellent in the first place, but also because outside of that which our eyes take in, the picture seems less than flawless. It's not that the acting is bad, because it's not; I think the cast turn in solid performances, with Monica Vitti and Gabriele Ferzetti being most noteworthy given that more time on-screen means more time to shine. It's not that the music is bad, because it's not; I quite like Giovanni Fusco's score. These elements just don't readily leap out in the same way that the visuals do. And it's not that the screenplay is bad, because it's not; the story is theoretically compelling, and the scene writing, even if I don't think every last detail is wholly suitable for the narrative (e.g. The scene in the sewing shop) or fully convincing (the progression of the dynamics between Claudia and Sandro). It's certainly true that the plot is ultimately rather light, though, accentuated by the fact that wide swaths of the dialogue could be dispensed with and nothing would be lost. In fact, part of me feels like 'L'avventura' could be rewritten with new dialogue, pointedly changing the tale so long as it still comports to the imagery before us, and we'd still effectively have the same movie.

Say of the writing what one will, however; there's one fault that decidedly stands out more. The pacing is not great. The first hour meanders so blithely, conveying so little in that time, that it becomes downright soporific; one hour took me two to watch because I really did keep falling asleep. The remaining length is more eventful, yet also weirdly deficient in its communication of the plot - just as the state of the primary characters' relationship to one another feels a little arbitrary, the broad strokes of their geographical journey are much clearer than the purpose of the stops they make along the way. With that in mind, even though more is happening on-screen after the first hour, still the pacing seems just as unbothered, as though the proceedings are just kind of shuffling around instead of meaningfully going anywhere. And for all this: oh yes, the visuals remain just as enticing, a real treat for movie lovers. Whether the camera is showing us landscapes, cityscapes, interiors, or shots of characters near or far, the result is always exquisite. Yet no matter how perfect a film may look, do the visions to greet us really matter if the storytelling is emphatically Lesser Than?

This is the second feature from Antonioni that I've watched, and the second for which my regard diverges significantly from popular opinion. The disparity isn't quite so great as with 1966's 'Blowup,' and I don't specifically dislike 'L'avventura,' but my thoughts on it are quite divided. The fundamental sights before us are totally splendid. The course of events they are intended to relate, from scattered small moments to major character relationships to the overall narrative, are substantially weaker. What we have then, in my estimation, is questionable material rendered with exemplary execution; the latter elevates the former, but is that enough? I'm glad for those that get more out of this movie; I'd like to say the same for myself. Unlike 'Blowup,' I can at least say that I understand how other viewers could derive more earnest meaning from this, its elder. Still, whatever it is that other folks have seen in 'L'avventura,' what I see is a stunning visual presentation that does its best to aid its companion component of storytelling that struggles to limp along. I don't regret watching it; I am, however, unsure that the visuals alone especially made it worth three and a half hours of my time.

Many of the post-war new wave European directors seemed to have problems making "American Films" that addressed US concerns. Today the distinction no longer arises, media globalisation/colonization being almost complete. But while Antonioni's "Zabriskie Point" was a weak attempt at "portraying America", his previous films have become only more relevant, working as effective portraits of very specific modern conditions.

Unlike the neorealist films that he was reacting against, Antonioni's major films don't portray any working class alternatives to the lives of the bourgeoisie. Instead, his films induce a kind of paralysis. They have a noxious and toxic quality, which his characters experience and his audience is forced to share. This paralysis is itself the consequence of what happens when gender stratification and class domination are pushed to the extreme points that they are in a medium-late capitalist society. In other words, Antonioni's internal suffering, his existential nausea, is the precise "subjective" consequence of an "objective" regime of accretion for its own sake.

Antionioni's cinema embalms the viewer in a sort of suffocating subjectivity, until we feel nothing but the neuroticism, narcissism, and cataclysmic disinterest of his characters. And yet, his camera constantly forces us into a distant, almost inhuman, position. It is this strange juxtaposition between an inhuman, almost anthropological distance, and a subjectivity so suicidally sickening, that makes Antonioni's films so unique.

More importantly, it is because of this internal malaise, that Antonioni's characters are constantly on the run. One of man's greatest flaws is his incessant belief that some external flight is capable of inducing some meaningful state of internal happiness. That by retreating to another location, man's problems may disappear. That by superficially changing his environment, escaping to a fantasy world, indulging in physical pleasures or acquiring and accumulating material objects, man may finally be at peace. But time and time again, Antonioni reveals these tactics to be nothing more than temporary distractions.

As such, Antonioni's characters seem to fall into two categories. His Italian trilogy (and Red Desert), for example, focuses on wealthy characters who haven't a financial care in the world. If we think in terms of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, then this is a group of people whose requirements - financial, physiological, social or otherwise - are always amply met. But it is precisely because their needs are met, that these characters are trapped in a state of contemplation. They are free to think. And it is precisely this freedom which brings about a painful sort of super-awareness. Rather than struggle to survive, they question their own survival. And so they suffer from self-imposed loneliness, from an inability to connect with other people except on the most superficial level (they stage shark attacks and bouts of sex for quick thrills), and from, not frustration so much as anhedonia, an inability to take pleasure, and also, more shockingly, an inability even to have dreams or desires.

While Antonioni's "wealthy characters" now work as apt stand-ins for post-modern man, for every man and woman in the developed world, Antonioni's English-language films tend to focus on photographers and radicals. That is, they are artists and voyeurs, outside of both paralysis and capitalist logic. They seek to escape their identities, live free on the margins of society, or bring about some social disruption or even revolutionary action. But again, there is no solution. Antonioni's filmography never resolves the problems he tackles.

Unique with Antonioni is the way his characters fail to comfortably inhabit the spaces in which they exist. Antonioni's characters always seem to be in an awkward relationship with their personal environments. They slide within vacant houses, are suffocated by industrial wastelands, search ragged islands, and though they dream of blissful beaches or utopian deserts, there is no escape, only an ever-expanding landscape of paralysis.

And within these spaces, all Antonioni's drama is internal. Antonioni's cinema is a cinema of inaction. Nothing external happens. Instead, we witness the immense tiredness of the human body. We witness the outcome of some unseen drama and the result of some long past trauma. Watch how Antonioni begins his films with relationships, not only long established, but already dissolved. These characters carry the burdens of a complete past history. A history forever unknown to us. Think of "The Passenger" which begins with Jack Nicholson already lost and in the wilderness, or "The Eclipse", which begins with lovers breaking up.

In a sense, Antonioni also predicts the after-glow of the Sexual Revolution. He portrays a universe dominated by the superego injunction "to enjoy". Pleasure is the goal, but partaking in such pleasures, now readily accessible with the collapse of religion, culture and morality, only lead to a callous indifference to pleasure itself. And so we have a desensitisation to pleasure: an inability to find gratification in money, love, ideology or objects.

Monica Vitti, Antonioni's beautiful leading lady, thus becomes a symbol for this dissatisfaction. Antonioni objectifies Vitti, treats her as a pillar of sex and beauty, an object of temptation and ripe possibility, yet simultaneously portrays her as a disinterested and disaffected zombie. Love cannot flourish without sex, but love is impossible precisely because of sex. Sex is thus, to put it in Zizekian terms, simultaneously the condition of the possibility and the impossibility of love.

Unsurprisingly, as we begin the 21st century, the problems faced by Antonioni's middle-aged characters seemed to have been transferred to an even younger generation. Indeed, if Antonioni were making films today, his characters would probably be in their late teens. Perhaps this is why today's younger viewers (the very viewers who would benefit most from his films) find it hard to identify with Antonioni's films. Perhaps what we need is an Antonioni of the 21st century. A younger, hipper Antonioni. The kind of Antonioni that Antonioni tried to be with "Zabriskie Point".

8.5/10 - Masterpiece.

L'Avventura (1960)****

Young woman (Lea Massari) suddenly disappears during a boating trip on an inhabited island. Shortly afterward, her boyfriend (Gabriele Ferzetti) and her best friend (Monica Vitti) became attracted to each other.

However, don't expect the mystery. This is a study of emotional isolation, moral decay, lack of the communication and emptiness of rich people in contemporary (then) society. You can easily be bored by the slow pace and the lack of dramatics of this movie unless you capture its true purpose. This is "state of mind" or experience film rather than conventional plot film. Antonioni practically discovered the new movie language in L'Avventura. By using formal instruments he is expressing emotions of the characters (loneliness, boredom, emptiness and emotional detachment) and the viewer is forced rather to feel this same emotions himself than to be involved in the story and its events. These formal instruments are: slow rhythm, real-time events, long takes, visual metaphors like inhabited island(s), fog, extreme long shots (small characters in panorama) and putting protagonists on inhabited streets or large buildings and landscapes.

Great cinematography. Forms trilogy with La Notte (1961) and L'Eclisse (1962).

"L'avventura" is Michelangelo Antonioni's mind-blowing film about nothing. No, I don't mean "nothing happens." On the contrary it has a suspenseful story which, in the hands of someone like David Fincher, would be a steamy heart-pounding thriller. A girl goes mysteriously missing on a remote Italian island while her fiancé and her best friend have a mystery of their own. A ton happens. But the movie is about "nothing" - the palpable spectre of oblivion, the unknown, and hollow faith that haunts us all.

Antonioni made the statement at Cannes: "Today the world is endangered by an extremely serious split between a science that is totally and consciously projected into the future, and a rigid and stereotyped morality which all of us recognize as such and yet sustain out of cowardice or sheer laziness (...) Moral man, who has no fear of the scientific unknown, is today afraid of the moral unknown."

In other words, he is saying we have accepted the scientific unknown (an infinitely unknown universe) and embraced it exploration into the future, but in terms of morality we cling to traditional, archaic stereotypes of the past. There are definitely religious overtones in images of empty churches, but specifically the film focuses on the institution of marriage and the concept of everlasting love which, when not attained, leads people to misery; yet we cling to it "out of cowardice or sheer laziness."

"L'avventura" focuses on the inherent "nothing" of love. It opens on a woman bidding farewell to her father in a very cold, emotionless way as he himself conducts a soulless business deal--selling their sprawling property to be razed and turned into cheap apartments. She then goes to meet her lover whom she hasn't seen in a month, but at the last minute she decides she'd rather go have coffee by herself because she prefers the feeling of being without him. The story unfolds as they and a group of other wealthy Italian couples take a boat to an isolated island, and on the way over we quickly learn that each couple is a loveless marriage with each person barely tolerating if not despising their spouse. And yet they remain together out of cowardice or sheer laziness.

Then the film does something absolutely brilliant to illustrate this concept of "nothing". About 30 minutes into the story, the entire plot disappears. Literally we are left without a plot, without a protagonist, and with nothing but a bunch of characters stumbling around trying to figure out what to do next. If you're not prepared for this shift you may end up frustrated or hating the movie because suddenly there's no point. But "no point" *is* the point.

As the characters lead a lukewarm effort to search for their missing companion (symbolically, the plot) they become increasingly apathetic toward the whole tragedy, and instead they resume their miserable lives, their loveless pairings, and their general lazy adherence to the way things always were. And in this way Antonioni illustrates what he said at Cannes. When faced with the moral unknown, rather than seizing and exploring it as we would with science, we fall back on familiar, tired patterns.

The film then breaks off to follow 2 characters in their half-hearted search. They travel through wonderfully surreal settings: towns that are completely deserted, or the opposite: a chaotic spectacle of hundreds of lusty men chasing after a pretty girl who has ripped her skirt. All of these scenes are majestically and gorgeously shot, and even if you don't immediately grasp the symbolism, you can't help but be stunned at how gripping the images are.

Initially booed by the audience at its premiere, "L'avventura" is definitely a challenging film. It gives us a plot but then rips the plot out from under us, replacing it with another, and then even that plot gradually sinks into a "love story". But if you're paying attention, you can guess that even the love story is ephemeral and fleeting. When the final, breathtaking scene ends, come back here and re-read the Antonioni quote (or better yet, search for the whole text and read it all) and you'll get it. "L'avventura" is about nothing.