Les vaincus

The avant-garde director Antonioni introduces us with several real facts about the rising number of juvenile riots after WWII in many countries in Europe, emphasizing in this picture split in three episodes each one in a distinct country a warning about the earnest matter whom taken many young lives into prison due their eagerness to be famous for their mates, a scathing criticism of the master toward the youth fools.

The first segment took place at France and concerning about jealous over a supposed guy to be rich who spread for all than is a millionaire, has been at your feet the most gorgeous girls, meanwhile his friends are poor, two of them set up a plan on the change to make a robbery followed by a murder.

The next segment change to Italy about proud, a well-born guy which entered in the dangerous and profitable business as smuggler of boozes in order to make his own money, he was caught in the act, while tried to slip away committed a murder.

The last one occurs in London, where a cocky and lazy guy looking for fame through his lousy poetry, realizing that didn't work out he devises a perfect murder of a woman, he own call the police and sell his odd story to a tabloid telling with own words each details over the murder and goes beyond when he needs more money to sustain his cost-extensive in the dog-track taking him in the edge of the abysm due his flippancy.

Thanks for reading.

Resume:

First watch: 2022 / Source: DVD / How many: 1 / Rating: 7.5.

This was Antonioni’s third film and arguably his rarest from the pre-AVVENTURA period. Taking an episodic structure, it is a sober treatment of juvenile delinquency – showing a widespread alienation affecting the youth of the post-war years in various European cities. The film has a rough, torn-from-the-headlines feel to it – even if the director’s perspective isn’t nearly as acute as in his later, more polished work (tending also towards preachiness, beginning from the opening montage).

The French episode shows a gang of aimless youth from working-class families cold-bloodedly planning and carrying out the murder of a boastful bourgeois companion of theirs out of envy. The Italian part is more conventional, though featuring some nice noir-ish atmosphere in its tale of a petty smuggler who commits murder in panic, is hurt trying to escape from the police and dies on reaching his home (having in the meantime confessed to his girl). It stars Franco Interlenghi (who appeared in similar ‘denunciations’ by other Italian master film-makers, namely Vittorio De Sica’s SHOESHINE [1946] and Federico Fellini’s I VITELLONI [1953]) and Eduardo Ciannelli, back home after a distinguished Hollywood career as a character actor.

The English segment – involving the discovery of a body in the park – rather serves as an interesting precursor to the much more celebrated (and abstract) BLOW-UP (1966), It emerges as the best episode, again revolving around a conceited character – only this time it’s he who turns to crime just for kicks (he relishes, even invites all the ensuing publicity). The victim is played by Fay Compton (from Orson Welles’ OTHELLO [1952]), while Patrick Barr (perhaps best-known as the retired blind judge in Pete Walker’s infamous HOUSE OF WHIPCORD [1974]) is the reporter hero.

For the record, Antonioni was involved with four other feature-film compendiums throughout his career – LOVE IN THE CITY (1953), the little-seen I TRE VOLTI (1965), BEYOND THE CLOUDS (1995) and his swan-song EROS (2004; which I had the privilege of watching during the Venice Film Festival, with the director sitting just a few paces away from me!).

Have said frequently about appreciating Michaelangelo Antonioni and his films. He is not one of my favourite directors, and he is more one of those "appreciate" rather than "love" directors for me, but a good number of his films are very good to wonderful (namely 'L'avventura', 'L'eclisse' and my favourite 'La Notte') with the odd disappointment here and there (i.e. 'Beyond the Clouds'). Completely understand his appeal and how influential he is.

'I Vinti' (translated as 'The Vanquished') is not one of my favourite Antonioni films, it's not even among my favourites of his early pre-'L'avventura' period. This particular period actually was very interesting, although it was obvious that Antonioini had not yet settled and was finding his style, and saw some intriguing and very well done films (even found liking them very much) that did show his often explored themes and visual style. Even though his later films handled the themes more deeply and broadly, character development generally was clearer and had more emotional impact and staying power as well as a more refined visual style, his early period films were not devoid of these qualities (just that his later films did them better when his style was more settled), are accessible and are not to be dismissed. A very early effort, 'I Vinti' is not an exception and it is a shame that it is one of his rarest films, of the early period and of Antonioni's overall ouevre.

What has been said above does apply with 'I Vinti', comprised of three different stories revolving around the same theme bookended by a prologue and ending. It is not one of my favourite Antonioni films, not even close, but of his (few) more episodic anthology-style films it is one of his better ones (infinitely better than 'Beyond the Clouds' at any rate). 'I Vinti' deals with its themes intriguingly always, with good intentions and quite insightfully at times, not always with depth or fully developed but at least it interested me and weren't go over the top on the flimsiness. It did slightly lack the same amount of emotional impact of other Antonioni films like 'La Notte', while certainly not leaving me cold or indifferent.

Also did find the prologue a little on the preachy side while understanding and acknowledging what it was trying to say, it just could have handled it more subtly. At least though it didn't ramble and provoked thought.

On the other hand, even if not among the most refined or vivid of Antonioni's films, 'I Vinti' is well made with lovely vivid scenery complemented by photography that may not be innovative but is still striking. The three stories are equally well done on their own and together on a structural level they didn't feel disjointed or cobelled together, plus they were accessible and easy to follow. The episodic structure doesn't come over as a hindrance and there is a documentary-style approach at times that was handled well. Antonioini's direction is never dull and felt in control, never got the sense that he was indifferent to the material or didn't know what to do with it.

The writing is thought provoking and doesn't waffle. Of the three stories, my favourite is the French one, being the most atmospheric and harrowing with the widest mix of emotions. Even if motivations are not always clear. The English story is also very interesting, with a wry and knowing tone at times. Can understand why some may find the Italian story bland, being the most somewhat conventional one of the three, but really liked the noir-ish atmosphere both visually and narratively. Did not find myself irritated or bored by the characters and while there aren't any amazing performances exactly, the performances are still very good and everybody has a good understanding of their characters and situations.

In conclusion, intriguing and well done if not one of Antonioni's best. 7/10

This is the only one of Antonioni's films that was clearly reshaped, to some degree, by the censors. It begins and ends with moralistic announcements about how the youth of the film's post-war today treat murder and brutality as a path towards notoriety in the press, implying that the political upheaval of the era had made the kids bloodthirsty. This "public service announcement" then demonizes both the characters of the film, many of whom will commit or take credit for a murder, and the insurrectionary movements that were gripping Italy at the time, with the voice of a prosaic humanism that was wholly alien to Antonioni, and the true spirit of this work.

The triptych of stories of youth in major European cities getting violent is, as is typical of the auteur, extremely detached and non-judgmental. The first, about a bunch of Parisian kids killing their rich friend, is pretty prosaic both narratively and visually. The one exception to the latter is a great shot when a huge, remote control plane comes diving down on a field from nowhere, technology once again making the natural world seem alien and unnatural as it so often does for this director.

Perhaps the strongest, if not the most intriguing, segment is the middle one in the filmmaker's native language. The student son of a boughie Rome family gets involved with smuggling for kicks, and ends up very much living the consequences of his criminal path. This is the closest Antonioni ever came to making pure noir, with a brilliant chase scene on and through a bridge, with magnificent chiaroscuro compositions. This segment, with its privileged rebel earning the consequences of a violent path, seems to me to be a pre-cursor of Antonioni's magnum opus, The Passenger.

The final, English segment has many, widely reported, elements that will be more fully developed in Blow-Up. In both, an off-putting British youth finds a murder victim in a park and attempts to exploit it for media/art's sake. There are a few fine examples of "Antonioni streets" and character blocking, but mostly this segment is notable for how authentically British it feels, much more so than Blow-Up.

The afore mentioned book-ending add ons by the authorities try to shift the audience's perspective to that of the jury that confronts the main subject of one of the segments. But they're not fooling anyone. As he revealed in his "English language trilogy" Antonioni clearly identifies with the random violence of the "youth of today" and perhaps sees it as necessary for liberation. When the lead character of one segment announces that, "the end of a human life is of no significance" we are meant to identify with the speaker, not shudder at his words

Episode films shot with the help of Francesco Rosi, in three different geographical areas, Italy, France and England, and as many languages, but with a common denominator: disturbing youth behavior up to the crime!

Of course not the whole young generation, represented in the film, released from the second world conflict, devoted himself to the overwhelming of one another, to affirm his personality, perhaps wounded by the incongruity of fathers who had allowed and immediately the horrors of the war. But the investigator eye of a young antonioni at his second feature film, focuses on chronicle facts that at that time followed with worrying frequency. Demonstrating the boredom and the cynicism of a bourgeois class which, according to the director, will result in the incommunicability between people who will be represented, as a stylistic figure, in his subsequent films, at least until the movie pop of the movie blow-up which for certain verses, echoes Posthum the English episode, the third, of the film in question.

To see to recognize the evolution of one of the great Italian cinema, hoping that the Cineteca di Bologna or the Criterion can restore the original and integral copy, given the aversion that was made by the censorship of the time!