L'Avventura
Review: The death of Ingmar Bergman earlier this year was a great blow to the world of film, but his passing was felt so acutely that it overshadowed the loss of another art film legend on the same day: Italian maestro Michelangelo Antonioni. Antonioni remains best known for Blowup (1966), his first English-language film that also saw him pick up an Oscar nomination for Best Director. However, his true international breakthrough came six years earlier at the Cannes Film Festival with L'Avventura, which took out that year's Jury Prize somewhat controversially after a mixed reception upon screening. The divided opinion is unsurprising, given the nature of the film. "To a jaded modern eye [L'Avventura] may struggle to justify its reputation." L'Avventura tells the story of a group of bored, shallow socialites out on holiday who stop by a rocky island in the Mediterrannean. Anna (Lea Massari), one of their number, mysteriously disappears and her boyfriend Sandro (Gabriele Ferzetti) and best friend Claudia (Monica Vitti) lead the search across the islands and across Italy for her. During the search, Sandro and Claudia find themselves drawn closer together. And that's about it as far as plot goes. To put it bluntly, very little happens in terms of events or action, because this is more of a character study and the images of L'Avventura are laden with metaphor. The film is actually about disconnection between people and how relationships struggle because they are forced to conform to a particular monogamistic morality, regardless of how the people involved may grow or change. Antonioni uses subtlety as a main weapon to describe how Sandro has lost the vigor of his youth, yet longs for it, and in his loss of identity he struggles to maintain any kind of relationship. Other visual metaphors are more blunt, particularly those around nature - the rocky, barren island echoes the relationships of those arriving on it, Claudia in turmoil looks out over crashing waves and in confusion at leafy branches made blurry by the wind. Most overtly, Antonioni even reverts to the hoary ol' train-going-into-the-tunnel to indicate sex. "Its drifting narrative may test the patience for the rewards." The film is visually strong throughout, with some revolutionary cinematography and yet to a jaded modern eye may struggle to justify its reputation. The langorous pacing (exacerbated by its 143 minute running time) borders on stalling on more than one occasion, and there seems little justification for Claudia to fall for Sandro; a significant flaw given their romance is the central theme of the movie. Indeed, her character is strangely vague, despite being burdened with the weight of much of the film's thematic substance and the lack of empathy with any of the characters is very distancing for the audience. Investment is required to glean the most from L'Avventura, but its drifting narrative may test the patience for the rewards. The result is a curious film that, as a treatise on modern ennui is effective - but as a work of entertainment, considerably less so.
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