L'Avventura (1960) - Matthew Puddister
Spoilers follow.
Movie rating: 5/10
A breakthrough film for director Michelangelo Antonioni, L’Avventura (“The Adventure”) was a major influence on arthouse cinema. Antonioni discarded many traditional rules of cinematic structure and created a slow, contemplative experience that is less about plot than character and atmosphere. For that reason the picture tends to create divided reactions. It had a notoriously long and troubled shoot, yet its first showing at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival garnered unintentional laughter and even boos from the audience. Nevertheless, many filmmakers and actors in attendance raved about L’Avventura and it ended up taking home the festival’s Jury Prize.
Ultimately I felt divided in my own reaction to the film, but by the end it leaned more towards the negative. The film’s plot takes a while to get going, revolving around the disappearance of Anna (Lea Massari) on an island trip with a group of companions that includes her boyfriend Sandro (Gabriele Ferzetti) and best friend Claudia (Monica Vitti). When Anna vanishes maybe 25 minutes into the film, things began to get interesting. Given that the film has a running time of 2 hours and 23 minutes, I wondered how they would fill up a couple more hours with this plot (note: I had inadvertently spoiled the ending for myself reading about the film and knew they would not find Anna).
The answer is, they don’t fill that time with plot. For long stretches the film seems to forget the plot entirely. Instead the focus largely shifts to a romance between Sandro and Claudia. When it first becomes apparent that Sandro is attracted to Claudia after Anna’s disappearance, and then he kisses her and she pulls away shocked, I was surprised and wondered how that would resolve itself. Again, the answer is that it kind of doesn’t. About halfway through it becomes apparent that the attraction is mutual. Somehow this shift didn’t quite convince me. It wasn’t immediately clear what these two saw in each other besides the fact that they are both physically attractive. Meanwhile, the fact that Sandro and Claudia fall in love within days after the unexplained disappearance of their romantic partner and best friend, respectively, doesn’t exactly paint them as the most morally upstanding individuals.
I’m sure that’s Antonioni’s point. But it would have been more effective for me if their relationship felt more convincing. As it is, Claudia’s shift from telling Sandro to leave her alone to proclaiming her love for him felt too sudden and unearned. Anna did seem to be toying with Sandro’s affections earlier in the film, which makes Sandro’s philandering slightly more understandable. Still, what we’re left with are a bunch of characters who don’t present many endearing qualities, whose arcs aren’t that convincing, against the backdrop of a plot that the movie stops caring about much of the time.
The film’s major strength is Monica Vitti, who became an international star after the release of L’Avventura. When Vitti died earlier this year at the age of 90, the BBC described her as the “Queen of Italian cinema”. I haven’t seen any of her other films yet, but watching her in this movie it’s easy to see why she became so popular. Vitti is one of the most stunningly beautiful actresses I’ve ever seen, yet still manages to convey a “girl-next-door” quality. Her acting is heartfelt and effective, her screen presence magnetic. Vitti commands the screen and her performance alone makes the movie worth watching. Yet paradoxically, her beauty and likeability make Sandro’s decision to cheat on her with an expensive prostitute near the end that much more baffling—as it does the ambiguous final shot that suggests Claudia forgives him and they will stay together.
L’Avventura is technically impressive. Antonioni almost manages to convince me to stop caring about the plot because the movie looks so good, full of wonderfully composed shots and breathtaking scenery from Italy. Again, this makes the film a pleasurable viewing experience if nothing else. There are some nice character bits. Unfortunately the film runs too long for its relatively threadbare plot and by the second half there are long stretches where I started to feel bored.
In a way it’s fitting that L’Avventura was so influential on the arthouse crowd, because it reminds me of certain things I don’t like about “artsy” cinema. There are a lot of critically acclaimed movies, some hailed as among the greatest ever, that I simply don’t understand the appeal of. Part of that may be the upper-class social milieu that many of these movies depict. L’Avventura fits that profile, conveying the lives of wealthy individuals who seem to have few real problems outside the mysterious disappearance of a young woman close to them. When the movie stops caring about that problem, I tend to stop caring about the movie. Oh, there are scenes where Claudia wrings her hands and feels guilty about hooking up with Sandro so soon after the disappearance of her friend. But by the end that doesn’t seem to matter to either of them that much, which makes it feel like the film doesn’t matter that much.
The story and characters ultimately felt a bit superficial and hollow. Maybe Antonioni is making a point about the character of the idle rich. Despite the best efforts of Vitti and Ferzetti, that isn’t enough to sustain my interest over such a lengthy running time.
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