L'Avventura 1960

In order to contextualize the importance of Antonioni and L’Avventura, I would refer to Martin Scocerse’s list of favorite films. Without a doubt, Martin Scorsese is one of the most recognized directors in the history of cinema. Films like Taxi Driver, Casino or The Wolf of Wall Street, the New York filmmaker has more than enough work to create his own list of the best films ever. Invited to elaborate on this privileged ranking, Scorsese quoted great classics such as Paisà (Comrade) by Roberto Rosselli (1946). Another Italian classic is the work of Michelangelo Antonioni, undoubtedly, one of Scorsese's favorite filmmakers. In regards to L’Avventura he said; "It's hard to think of a film that has a more powerful understanding of the way people are linked to the world around them, because of what they see, touch, taste and hear," and concludes "visually, sensually, thematically, dramatically, in all senses, is one of the great works of cinema".

Michelangelo Antonioni, L’Avventura is one of the key milestones of the cinematographic modernity, in addition to the international fame and of its director, Michelangelo Antonioni, especially at the root of the enormous scandal that surrounded this masterpiece. When it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, the film was heavily booed and attacked mercilessly. It was because of this failure that a series of critics and it was the filmmakers with an affinity to this new cinematographic wave who demanded a second showing, in which it received a Special Prize of the Jury "for its new cinematographic language and the beauty of its images", from here on cinema had a new masterpiece. 

It seems to me that the central theme, which Antonioni decided to discuss through this film, is human relationships and their lack of communication. The director emphasizes the construction of the characters and their dialogues. We can appreciate the way in which, in several sequences, the characters Claudia (Monica Vitti) and Sandro (Gabriel Ferzetti) are completely silent, while they walk through a room, or the exteriors of the great white island. At other times, within a completely superficial dialogue, we can have another level of reading, below which the real feelings of the characters are hidden; those who cannot communicate.

In this film, the narrative construction is a very attractive point. L’Avventura begins with some bourgeois characters that make a trip on a yacht. After hours of travel, the crew stops on a small uninhabited island, where some disembark, among them our protagonist trio: Anna, Claudia and Sandro. Anna and Sandro are in a relationship, although she is very dissatisfied with her partner, as her friend Claudia will later prove in the film. During her stay on the island, Anna disappears; it is here where we find an interesting moment, because a few minutes (considering that it is a long movie), the main character disappears. This moment in the film reminded me a bit of Psycho from Htichcock, a film in which something similar happens, the protagonist disappears after thirty minutes of film. The film from that moment on is about absence of the presence creating the metaphysical complexity of the narrative.

ey milestones of the cinematographic modernity, in addition to the international fame and of its director, Michelangelo Antonioni, especially at the root of the enormous scandal that surrounded this masterpiece. When it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, the film was heavily booed and attacked mercilessly. It was because of this failure that a series of critics and it was the filmmakers with an affinity to this new cinematographic wave who demanded a second showing, in which it received a Special Prize of the Jury "for its new cinematographic language and the beauty of its images", from here on cinema had a new masterpiece.

One thing that is extremely interesting about the film, is that Antonioni was a part of Italian Neo-realism, having worked as a screenwriter, among other things, for directors of the stature of Roberto Rosellini. But, unlike the neorealist style where the important thing is to film on the streets, not to use sets, as well as to focus on the less "favored" classes of the country; Antonioni focuses his gaze and speech on the Italian bourgeois class, making a cruel portrait and a critique to this well-to-do class, the characters are boring, empty, hypocritical and amoral.

This film was very popular at the time, because it was a work of unusual transgression, one could almost say revolutionary. Perhaps modernity was so obvious to the common spectator then, but still today remains one of those films that has both that praise and detract this film as a work of art. L’Avventura completely escaped the most elementary bases of film narrative by showing a brutally sincere portrait of human relationships and their lack of communication. Antonioni narrative style is clearly portrayed in the other two films related to L’Avventura, the so-called "Trilogy of non-communication”; La Notte (1961) and The Eclipse (1962).

All of them will search every smallest corner of the tiny island but eventually give up. When the police arrive, they continue with the search, also investigating along the waters of the rocky areas in case she had decided to commit suicide, but there is no sign of Anna. It is impossible that Anna, alive or dead, could remain on the island, so Claudia and Sandro decide to continue looking for her on the mainland.

Following the analysis of the narrative construction of L’Avventura, the fact is that we never learned what actually happens with Anna. This is an excuse to unleash the main plot, just as Hitchcock did with Psycho. After the disappearance, Claudia and Sandro begin to look for their friend. But behind this, there is a hidden feeling that the two characters never express (a resource that works for Antonioni to emphasize lack of communication), and that is that they begin to have a romantic adventure and, simultaneously, carry out the search for the lost friend.

What becomes more controversial of the film even today is the fact that at no time is explained to us what has happened to Anna. Antonioni does not care what happened to her character, but the consequences of her disappearance, because while Sandro and Claudia seek for Anna they end up falling in love. Therefore, what was supposed to be the central conflict of the film fades away until it disappears in favor of what Antonioni really wants to show us: the strange relationship between Sandro and Claudia, the fact that they live a romance while they are looking for this woman. Who are they really betraying? In a scene that takes place in the final stretch of the film, Sandro goes away from Claudia to make an inquiry and when he returns she is terrified because she was afraid that he had found Anna. She herself recognizes that she has gone from fearing for her friend's life to being afraid that she is still alive. This sick contradiction is one of the bases of the film.

Another controversial point is Antonioni's fulminating portrait of the well-to-do and idle bourgeoisie; he would also attack in his next film, La Notte. In particular, the initial scenes of the yacht trip are especially cruel. All the characters are presented as boring, empty and even pathetic. One of the couples, Giulia and Corrado, is especially shocking because absolutely all their dialogues end up in an insult from him towards her ("The weather has gotten worse" "Please, do not be so didactic, I see that the weather has worsened ";" Formerly, the Aeolian Islands were volcanoes "" When we came here 12 years ago, you made exactly the same comment "). In the middle of Anna's frantic search, Giulia suddenly talks to Claudia at a certain moment about how badly her husband treats her, as if she was not aware of the seriousness of Anna's disappearance. Later, Giulia cheats on her husband with a young painter, but before giving herself to him she makes sure that Claudia sees her, as if she wants to compensate for the ridicule she has suffered before. It seems that she is cheating on him more for revenge than for a real desire. In fact, all the characters give off an amorality that is really annoying. They have no problem whatsoever committing adultery among them and in fact this is what Claudia and Sandro do, with the difference that they seem to really want each other while the rest do it almost out of boredom.

It is remarkable the way that Antonioni has to show us the existential void and the lack of communication that surrounds these characters. The film begins with a conversation between Anna and her father in which that lack is clear, but it is something that runs throughout the film and affects even Claudia and Sandro. Although they are sincerely wishing, at all times there is something underlying that gives us to understand that not everything works as well as it should, that the characters are not completely united and there is still something that separates them. Maybe Anna's ghost? Or, Claudia and Sandro are simply destined to understand each other as little in the future as Anna and Sandro did?

Despite the risk involved in carrying out such an abstract film in its content, Antonioni does a tremendous job of direction that makes L’ Avventura an absolutely fascinating film. His obsession with landscapes, not only natural but also urban, is evident here: the planes of the island and the sea, the buildings of the towns visited by the protagonists and even the characters themselves. Antonioni pampers each frame making his work look especially beautiful and evocative, something that would lead to its maximum expression in the last minutes of The Eclipse, in which it completely leaves aside the plot to show a succession of almost abstract planes of a city. Few directors have been able to work as well as he does the form the objects when placing them on a plane.

Some of these landscapes become so abstract that they even look like nightmarish images, like the empty town or the square where Claudia is suddenly harassed by men who look at her maliciously. Like the disappearance of Anna, there are elements that have no rational explanation, but this serves to increase the unhealthy climate of tension that the characters live.

Perhaps one of the aspects that I liked the least was the ending, in which Claudia finds Sandro with another woman and he, scared, gets covered in the womb of the female, while Claudia leaves. Finally they are on the roof of the hotel and Sandro cries, causing Claudia to put her hand on his head as a symbol of forgiveness. It seems to me that, in this end, the reactions are not very credible, something mechanical and implausible; above all, it is difficult for me to believe and understand Sandro's final cry, as well as Claudia's forgiveness. However I think that this also defines very well the theme of the film; despite of the deceit, the weeping and other issues that we could appreciate, both characters remain silent, without giving an explanation of their actions and feelings, which emphasizes and summarizes very well the lack of communication that the director wanted to present.

In this plane is reflected all the non-communication that surrounds the two, their inability to solve their problems verbally; their condemnation to love and at the same time hurt each other as the rest of the characters in the film. This problem has seldom been exposed so beautifully and simply, something that has such a dramatic meaning: the ineffectiveness of human relationships and the inability not to harm the people we love most. Under that apparent visual beauty, L’Avventura hides one of the most visceral and disenchanted portrayals of human relationships in contemporary society.

Cast:

Claudia (Monica Vitti)

 Anna (Léa Massari),

Sandro (Gabriele Ferzetti)

Release date: June 29, 1960 (USA)

Director: Michelangelo Antonioni

Cinematography: Aldo Scavarda

Screenplay: Michelangelo Antonioni, Tonino Guerra, Elio Bartolini

Antonioni and Monica Vitti during the filming of L'Avventura