L'avventura (1961)

L'avventura is so Antonioni. This is a positive and a negative thing. I found myself irritated about watching yet another film about alienated rich people babbling emptily and ambiguously about life and Nothingness. On the other hand, L'avventura is a well-crafted, at times haunting film with very good scenes. The story is simple. A group of young-ish people go on a merry cruise. They quibble about stuff and something seems weird early on (for example, a girl, Anna, lies about seeing sharks, making everybody afraid). They make a halt on an island. When they are about to leave, they notice that Anna is nowhere to be found. As they go looking for her, the camera indulges in the craggy, desolated landscape of the island. They don't find the girl, and have to leave the island. Sandro, Anna's playboy-ish boyfriend, hooks up with Claudia, who was also on the trip. They continue looking for their friend, but at the same time, they initiate a love affair. The film follows their erratic scout-abouts in small towns and luxurious hotels. They have arguments, meet other people and we are hardly given the impression that they are a happy couple. Anna drifts in and out of their consciousness.

Let's start with the things I didn't like about L'avventura. It's a film with many weak or unfocused scenes. This could indeed be a good aspect, and sometimes it works: the story just trods on, not being too preoccupied with "making sense". But there were moments where I simply lost contact with and interest in the film: the images just drifted past me. Another problem is how Antonioni conjures up a sense of existential emptiness, sometimes overdoing his case by layers of non-significance: soulless dialogue is combined with images of people who seems to be shells of real human beings. At some point I started to think: what contrast could there be in this film to anomie and misery? I sometimes felt drained in Antonioni's world of cynics and rich people, looking at gorgeous girls and sleek men. At its worst, both the characters and the film itself remains flat and very, very pretentious. But in some scenes, I am moved and intrigued by the sense of dread that is Antonioni's expertise. Interestingly, I thought that the conventional first segments of the film was the least interesting. As the film started to fall apart, I was more and more impressed by Antonioni's attentive eye for surroundings and space.

In one scene, Sandro and Claudio stand beside the strings of a church bell. They ring the bells and the camera pans on the strings and out on the eerie landscape. It's a typically beautiful scene. There are two twin scenes of women chased and ogled by hords of men. These scenes, too, are unnerving and very to the point (here Antonioni's fancy for good-looking girls are place in a self-critical light, almost).

L'avventura is not a mystery film. Anna's disappearance is not a mystery, but rather a riddle, or a symptom. We never know what happened to her. But thinking about it, one comes to take different stances toward the events of the film. This was a very successful move by Antonioni.