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Did anyone else not like this as much as other Antonioni films?

posted 14 years ago by sevenwaves
3 replies | jump to latest

I love L'Eclisse for its otherworldly quality, its ability to let the architecture say what the people can't. I love Red Desert for its frightening insight into a traumatized mind, its sense of being pregnant with hidden meanings. I thought the much-maligned Zabriskie Point was a blast, fun and funny and a perfect representation of a hyperreal culture where advertising and slogans are more real than real life. Blowup was my first Antonioni film and I didn't really get it, but in retrospect, I'm fascinated by all its strange gaps and unexplained events. But I just didn't click with L'Avventura. Watching people sulk and mope and pout doesn't move me. While I felt similarly about La Notte, at least that movie has a devastating ending, and that gorgeous nighttime rain scene. L'Avventura just seemed to wander around in a malcontent haze most of the time. There were some beautiful shots, but nothing like the astonishing concentrated formalism of L'Eclisse. I guess a lot of people see it as going very deep into issues of love and people's values concerning it, but Claudia and Sandro's behavior didn't bear much resemblance to anything I recognized as human psychology. I don't know. Maybe I'll realize a few days from now that it's crept under my skin -- Antonioni tends to work that way for me -- but somehow that doesn't seem likely this time.

Anyone else feel similarly, or am I alone in this?

(P.S. As far as "a mysterious disappearance in a natural setting and its effect on everyone else" movies go, I much prefer Picnic at Hanging Rock.)

[–] BrianInvincible 14 years ago

Being the first Antonioni film I have seen, I was unsure of excatly what to expect from 'L'Avventura'. At the end of the film I was left feeling somewhat vacant and fustrated, struggling to empathise or care for the central characters. Perhaps if Anna had reappeared later in the film the story and characters would have become more involving.

Overall, I agree that the film can leave the viewer a little disappointed. I will have to see other Antonioni films to come to a rounded judgement of the director's work.

[–] pholttum 14 years ago

I agree. See my review. Absolute rubbish - as was "Blow Up" which I saw when it came out 40 years or so ago. I have not seen any others of this director, but suspect they are of similar boring ilk. Very disappointing. Rubbish masquerading as high art.
Peter

[–] franzkabuki 13 years ago

Seen 4 from Antonioni (the other 3 being his English language films) and definitely think L´Avventura is the best - it´s generally closest to the previous favourite Professione: Reporter, of course, but even more powerful and more beautifully shot. Blowup I kind of appreciate with semi-long teeth as there´s too much of that fashionable "swinging London" annoyance going on around the mysterious silence of the park... and Zabriskie is obviously hampered by the excessive silliness and heavy handed pushing of that youth rebellion thingy.

As for the "moping and sulking and pouting" then, well, I guess there´s quite a bit of this type of thing, but it is all happening on the canvas of masterfully photographed land- or cityscapes where the gorgeous wide screen compositions often literally dwarf the human figures - not to mention become sort of extentions of the characters´ emotions as has been duely noted - so whatever sulking they might be doing never becomes bothersome. And of course, Antonioni is thankfully a very laconic man in his films and thus spares us the wallop of blather that usually tends to accompany relationship dramas such as this (I watched Godard´s Le Mepris a few months back and the central part, around 40 minutes, of that particular number was just a murder to sit through as the couple just kept yakking on and on and on about all sorts of trivialities... thought that sh-t would never end).

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