Review of L'Avventura (1960) by Fergus D — 29 Sep 2007

L'Avventura, by Michelangelo Antonioni, doesn't fit easily into any conventional genre. On the surface level it's essentially a study of a relationship between a man and a woman, but it is also consciously a commentary on more elemental masculine and feminine characteristics - we are shown two distincly different ways of deriving meaning from the world.

The simple plot unfolds with a compelling slow, but percise tempo - my best effort at describing it, is andante. This tempo is all the more important, as there is little score in the film - what there is, (at least to my memory,) is diagetic. In the absence of music to lend emotive queues to the audience, Antonioni uses other techniques. In particular, the surroundings of each sequence, each shot, are carefully chosen. The actors are placed on the stage with meticulous attention to detail. The backgound architecture always suits the tone. For example, at one stage the couple visit a little town called Notto. It is empty, barren - my name for it is The Null Place. The buildings in the town are all boxlike, monotone, unadorned. The main feature of the town is a great, hulking church, which shares the same simple, empty architecture, but rises over everything else in the place. Instinctively, Antonioni has the artistic grace to not shove his technique in our faces - each scene fits fluidly together.

In harmony with the tempo of the plot, we get to know the characters slowly. I don't know what it is about Italian directors, but they seem to have an uncanny ability for creating this kind of latent superwoman. Line by line, scene by scene, there is nothing spectacular in what the female protaganist does or says, but by the time the film wraps up, she has somehow become as a Goddess. She struggles with her weaknesses and is overcome by them and yet she still embodies grace, faith, forgiveness. I caught myself comparing her to Cabiria - in L'Avventura however, the heroine emerges from her trials, from her adventure, without need of transformation - she is instead the transformer.