A Aventura

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).

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.

Several attractive, hip sophisticates set sail on a yacht in the Mediterranean. One of these beautiful people mysteriously disappears. And that sets up the rest of the film's plot.

All of these characters are jaded, haughty, vain, shallow, and self-absorbed. They're preoccupied with romance and their personal feelings toward each other. As a result, I did not find any of them interesting or appealing in the least. Indeed, the Anna character comes across as spoiled, irritable, something of a prima donna; Claudia only slightly less so.

The film's plot is slow, with long camera "takes". In the film's first half, a lot of time is consumed with characters walking around on an island, casually searching for the missing person. In the second half, the plot gets sidetracked, with a sequence or two on "modern" art. This artistic motif has little or nothing to do with the missing person, and thus conveys the impression that the film is being "padded", in an avant-garde sort of way, to prop up the flimsy story concept.

With the howling wind, the crashing of waves against the shore, and rocks falling into the sea, the film has some impressive sound effects. The B&W cinematography is rather conventional, a little disappointing given the lush and exotic locales. Still, the Mediterranean scenery is beautiful in its own right.

With a runtime of well over two hours, a thin storyline, and long drawn-out scenes wherein not much happens, the film comes across as pretentious. This is especially true given that some viewers regard "L'Avventura" as "revolutionary". Maybe it is, in an extremely subtle, artsy sort of way. On the other hand, its reputation may be based more on wishful thinking than on substantive evaluation, given the intellectual audience that this film seeks to impress.

By the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Italian economy had already started stabilising and moving away from the devastating consequences of WWII. The stabilisation and subsequent economic growth took place through rapid and widespread industrialisation. One can also clearly notice a shift in the sensibilities in the Italian films which were made during these years by acclaimed filmmakers like Antonioni, Fellini, Ermanno Olmi, etc. Their films shifted away from the concerns of neorealist films of the 1940s and early 50s. In this context, it is very interesting to note the dissimilarities between a typical Italian neorealist film and a post-neorealist film like 'L'Avventura'. While Neorealism dealt with the economic fallout of WWII, 'L'Avventura' deals with a sense of disillusionment in the midst of rapid industrialisation(the very first line of dialogue revolves around how the natural woods are being being replaced by houses). While Neorealism focused on the poor working class Italians, 'L'Avventura' focuses on the privileged upper class or the bourgeois section of the Italian society.

From a technical standpoint, it has to be said that 'L'Avventura' is exquisitely shot. The camera movements and numerous tracking shots are executed with a distinct sophistication and methodical precision. There are a lot of complex frame compositions that take place in the interior scenes which scream perfectionism on the part of Antonioni. The overall tone for the film is one of extreme austerity. This austerity and lack of humanity to the film is clearly meant to represent the supposed lack of humanity in the midst of mindless industrialisation and consumerism. I think one thing that the viewer has to assume in order to buy into the film's plot and story elements is that the film takes place in Antonioni's own world which is a little different to the real world. This is because accepting the reaction of some of the characters to certain occurrences in the film will involve a certain amount of the suspension of disbelief.

The problem I had with 'L'Avventura' is that after a while, the relentless austerity started to get a little unbearable and tough to be receptive to. It's interesting because I know the austerity is absolutely deliberate and it's intended to epitomise the ennui that the characters get afflicted by along with Antonioni's own idea of the blandness and aimlessness of life in contemporary industrialised Italy of the early 60s. The first hour of the film is absolutely spectacular and rich with abstract existentialist intrigue. But once the group leaves the island and we re-enter civilisation, the film gets progressively less intriguing for me. I generally don't get negatively affected by the austerity of Kubrick or Bergman. But the second half of this film really started to progressively weigh me down.

I don't think any acting performance in the film is particularly special. But of course Monica Vitti offers vulnerability and a sensitive touch to her character and she is the only one that the viewer can find any reason to sympathise with. But to be honest, it is clear that Antonioni is in no mood to make any character singularly likable.

Overall 'L'Avventura' is a film that clearly shows a master at work who clearly has a visual flair and a philosophical voice. But the austerity and lack of humanity in the film makes it tough to rewatch and revisit too often.

Gorgeous film, with devastating commentary on relationships. Early on there is something raw and elemental about the dramatic setting, an island with the sea roaring around its craggy inlets, rock formations that look ancient, and the wind howling as it blows up a storm. The people that have come to this place on a pleasure cruise off the coast of southern Italy are generally all unhappy or dissatisfied, most of them with the person they're in a relationship with. When Anna (Lea Massari) suddenly goes missing, a search ensues.

I loved the premise, and loved even more where the film went from there. Sandro (Gabriele Ferzetti), Anna's fiancé, begins pursuing her friend Claudia (Monica Vitti) from the first day of her absence, which is pretty shocking. And the further the action moves away from the island and we see the other characters either getting on with their lives (most of which involve infidelities of their own), or making what seems to be a pretty distant effort to know what's happening, the more we wonder, but what about Anna? If it were a conventional film, I'd be thinking that given the guy starts dating her girlfriend pretty much immediately after she goes missing, why are the police not investigating him? Or questioning a character named Corrado, who had gone off in a boat to a smaller island right beforehand? But the film is not meant to be a mystery, it's making a point about the human condition.

What does it mean to live one's life how one wants, to seek happiness, and to be able to adapt and move on, things that you might think would all be positive, at least to some degree? Does it mean inherent selfishness, infidelity, and unkindness? And can monogamous relationships survive in a world where little dissatisfactions set in, and there is always another person to be attracted to? I thought the film was well paced and had no issues with its length, as it allows subplots to develop, and the longer it went, the more it caused me to occasionally wonder ... what about Anna? And is this what we do to the people in our lives, pushing them out of mind when it becomes convenient? I loved how the film stayed artistically pure, seeking its vision, without caving in and giving us canned or artificial moments. And in that last moment, what I saw as forgiveness for what is an unforgiveable act ... perhaps it signals something that seems pretty depressing, that infidelity is inevitable, and it takes an almost divine act like that hand on the back of the head to stay together as a couple.

Through it all, director Michelangelo Antonioni gives us a beautiful, beautiful film. His compositions and attention to detail - in grand, sweeping shots and those that are closer - are wonderful. There are countless scenes that are visually appealing, and while it felt like there was a unifying theme in the aesthetic, he seems to experiment a little, such as that great shot from the boat back towards the dock, lightly bobbing with the waves, and the rocky island rising up in the background.

Some other little bits:

• Anna had two books with her on the trip, F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'Tender is the Night' and the Holy Bible. I liked how the father conveniently disregarded the first, with its themes on the unhappiness in marriage, and took the Bible exclusively to mean that she hadn't committed suicide. We see what we want to see.

• Just as human relationships are subject to impermanence maybe out of neglect, one of the people clumsily drops an ancient vase discovered in one of the island's caves, and it makes no difference to them.

• There is reverence for the freedom and spacing of the architectural style of ancient buildings which have survived, but our lives seem so dreadfully transient in comparison. In one scene Ferzetti's character deliberately tips over an inkwell on an artist's drawing, seemingly out of spite. I wondered if he was jealous of youth, or jealous of having sold out on his old dreams to become more of a businessman than an architect - sensing his own mortality, or his compromises in a too-short life.

• In keeping with the elemental early scenes and the commentary on the fundamental nature of people, there was something primal about the very aggressive southern Italian male gaze from dozens of men in a large crowd around Monica Vitti in one scene, which was very creepy.

• Favorite quote, Anna at about the 25 minute mark:

"I'm distraught. The idea of losing you makes me want to die. And yet I don't feel you anymore." Shortly afterwards, she's gone.