Watch at Least 3 Times & You'll Figure Out What Happened to Anna
The main clues are in the first part of the movie.
shareIt's hardly important, whatever happened to her. Similar to the murder mystery in Blow Up.
''You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star''
onefly,
I am not sure what happened to Anna is entirely unimportant. I think the viewer is supposed to understand that Anna is not happy with Sandro, and that has to do with her disappearance. And to wonder how much of that is his fault. But you are essentially correct that the specifics are not important. What is important is her absence and the lingering sense that she may reappear at any time, or at least that the characters will find out what happened to her.
I think the viewer is supposed to understand that Anna is not happy with Sandro, and that has to do with her disappearance.
True, the disappearance itself is a crucial element in the film (serving as a kind of existential, metaphoric void around which the rest of the film is centered, in a way). It's the actual specifics that are not important (whether she drowned, left, or simply vanished into thin air) . Here's a quote by Antonioni that I imagine equally applies to L'Avventura:
What happens to the characters in my films is not important. I could have them do one thing, or another thing. People think that the events in a film are what the film is about. Not true. A film is about the characters, about changes going on inside them. The experiences they have during the course of the film are simply things that 'happen to happen' to characters who do not begin and end when the film does. In "Blow-Up", a lot of energy was wasted by people trying to decide if there was a murder, or wasn't a murder, when in fact the film was not about a murder but about a photographer. Those pictures he took were simply one of the things that happened to him, but anything could have happened to him: he was a person living in that world, possessing that personality.
Of course, it's interesting to ponder over what really happened to her but it's also easy to miss the point of the film by solely focusing on that aspect.
''You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star'' share
"It's the actual specifics that are not important (whether she drowned, left, or simply vanished into thin air) ."
Onefly,
Hm. I am not sure I fully agree here, even if I generally do. Let me explain.
Anna's apparently increasing alienation from Sandro IS relevant. We see it, and the nature of his character, and how he both is relatable and differs from the viewer in the ensuing relationship with Vittoria is significant. Significant not only in terms of the narrative but also the thematic elements and point of the film. so, to the extent one concluded that Anna left as an intentional act, without letting any of them know about her doing so, would tend to make more clear just how far she had drifted from Sandro.
But it is also true that having been given the "information" that Anna is unhappy with Sandro, what actually happened to her thereafter is not important in the sense of how the other characters act following her disappearance. To the contrary, from their perspectives it is significant how the effect of such uncertainty creates or encourages (I suppose I lean more to use of encourages) the dynamics among them, and especially between Sandro and Vittoria.
In other words to follow your quote from Antonioni himself, it was the general fact of Anna's disapperance that "happened" to both Sandro and Vittoria, as well as the others. Since they never do find out what exactly happened to her, of course what happened is not significant. But having said that there remains that little caveat that whether Anna chose to pursue leaving specifically Sandro behind without lettting him know that she left would have significance.
I like what Ebert said about her disappearance being linked to the film's mostly wealthy, bored, and spoiled characters, none of whom have fulfilling relationships. They are all, wrote Ebert, "on the brink of disappearance".
(Lifted from Wikipedia)
It's also interesting that Antonioni wrote and shot a sequence of Anna's body being recovered from the sea.
Interesting that you mentioned the last part about how a scene was filmed because those "Clues" the OP spoke about ARE real. However, I think in the end, it's all about provoking the audience. From the non existing Shark, to the strange Pans/Camerawork throughout the search, it became evident that ambiguity worked better are pushing the narrative.
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