A Aventura

"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.

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.

Having recently seen L'Avventura and Scenes from a Marriage back to back they seem as different as it is possible to be. Yet they do share a common ground, namely humanity's quest for love and understanding and the seemingly insurmountable obstacles that lie in the way. But whereas Bergman's film has moments of true warmth and happiness, Antonioni's L'Avventura is as brutally cold as a Scandinavian winter.

Plot summary is not entirely important (and would spoil potential surprises), suffice to say that the movie is uniquely structured and may not proceed the way you expect it to. There is a mystery, and romance; but not in any traditional sense. The men and women of this film stumble through a loveless, desolate Italy, occasionally pausing for forced, wretched couplings. Alienation and the inability for humans to connect to one another have never been so painfully presented in film.

While discussing the guilt felt in betraying a mutual friend a woman asks "How can it be that it takes so little to change, to forget?" to which the man responds, "It takes even less." Before one of the films many desperate scenes of impersonal copulation the woman cries out in a fit of existential despair, "I feel as though I don't know you!" to which the man responds, "Aren't you happy? You get to have a new fling." The film is so brutally cynical about friendship, love and human interaction that it feels unreal. Strange alien landscapes, magnificently filmed among the rocky islands around Italy serve to underline the insurmountably barren distances between the characters. And as they grope and fumble for some kind of connection in the darkness that surrounds them, the viewer is pulled into their mire as well.

When they are not desperately searching for some kind of connection with each other, the characters struggle to come to terms with their own absurd existence. A man knocks over a bottle of ink, destroying an art student's in-progress drawing. A woman makes faces in a mirror at herself. Another woman pretends to see a shark in the ocean she is swimming in. None of these distractions are remotely successful.

By the time the film has reached its unbelievably cynical ending (dependant on one of the most effective uses of a musical score in film history), it becomes clear. These people have lost their way.

This overwhelming bleakness seems like it would create an unbearable viewing experience, but there is a truth to it all as well. Companionship is a basic human need, and it can often seem impossibly difficult to form any real connection. However, what is important is that it only seems that way, it is not impossible. Antonioni has shown us only one possible outcome. By watching a movie filled with people slouching towards oblivion, unable to form even the most basic human bond, the mind rebels. There must be another way

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).

There's something strange going on in this film.

The first time I watched it, it seemed to wash over me without affecting me in anyway. Later on(and I've read this in other people's comments here as well) I found images and dialogue from the movie creeping into my subconscious; entire dreams would take place upon the island where Anna goes missing(often in monochrome), or I'd start to compare real life events to those that occur during the film. Did Antonioni plant subliminal messages within the movie? Probably not. It's more likely the masterful pace he employs here, coupled with the busy, deep cinematography is the cause of this. Notice how the backgrounds NEVER go out of focus, no matter how much is going on within the frame. Check out the scene about an hour and ten minutes in, where Sandro and the old man are talking in the middle of an extremely busy street; nothing blurs or goes out of focus, even when a tram comes in and out of the shot, nothing loses it's perspective, and as the scene ends and they walk deep into the shot we can see way past them and far, far into the distance.

This seems to be why the film has such a deep affect on the subconscious. The characters are deliberately shallow and are placed at the very foreground of every shot, yet the backgrounds are rich tableaux bustling with life. In the scenes on the island where Anna disappears, we see the main characters always in shot, yet in the background there is a feeling that something strange within nature itself is going on. The darkening of the clouds, the sudden mist upon the water, the rocks falling to the sea, even the sudden appearance of the old hermit character, all give a certain unease.

There's also the haunting feeling of the film, as Anna's friends begin, almost immediately to forget about her. Soon, they don't seem to care a jot about her, and neither, in a sense, do we. It's this feeling of loose ends and guilt on our part(for joining her so called 'friends' in forgetting about her so quickly) that leaves the deepest impression. The characters in this film are so morally shallow(the ending bears this out) yet they are the reason this film leaves such a strong impression on those who watch it, and who become captivated by it.

I cant recommend this film to everyone because I know that the Hollywood Blockbuster has reduced most modern cinema-goers attention spans to almost zero. But if you fancy a challenge, or merely wish to luxuriate in classic cinema.....begin here.