| L'Avventura | |
|---|---|
Original Italian film poster |
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| Directed by | Michelangelo Antonioni |
| Produced by | Amato Pennasilico |
| Written by | Michelangelo Antonioni Elio Bartolini Tonino Guerra |
| Starring | Gabriele Ferzetti Monica Vitti Lea Massari |
| Music by | Giovanni Fusco |
| Cinematography | Aldo Scavarda |
| Editing by | Eraldo Da Roma |
| Studio | Cino Del Duca |
| Distributed by | Cino Del Duca (Italy) Janus Films (US) |
| Release date(s) | 15 May 1960 (Cannes Film Festival) 29 June 1960 (Italy) 4 March 1961 (United States) |
| Running time | 145 minutes |
| Country | Italy France |
| Language | Italian |
L'Avventura (The Adventure) is a 1960 Italian film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and developed from a story he created. Monica Vitti and Gabriele Ferzetti star. It is noted for its careful pacing, which puts a focus on visual composition and character development, as well as for its unusual narrative structure. According to an Antonioni obituary, the film "systematically subverted the filmic codes, practices and structures in currency at its time."[1]
The film was produced in 1959 on location in Italy under difficult financial and physical conditions. It made Monica Vitti an international star.[2] It is the first of a "trilogy" by Antonioni, followed by La Notte (1961) and Eclipse (1962).[3][4][5]
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L'Avventura has a narrative structure in which an apparently important central mystery is gradually forgotten and left unsolved.
The story begins as two young women, Anna (Lea Massari) and Claudia (Monica Vitti), meet for a yacht trip. After picking up Anna's lover Sandro (Gabriele Ferzetti), the three join two wealthy couples from Rome on the boat and visit "Lisca Bianca," an almost unpopulated volcanic island off the coast of Sicily, where Anna shows her boredom and unhappiness with the sometimes childish Sandro. After napping on the rocks, they awaken to find that Anna has gone without a trace. Annoyed at first, then worried, they search for her, helped by Anna's diplomat father who soon comes to the island with a police ship and helicopter.
Within a few days, they drift back to their lives as the story shifts to a new and somewhat stormy relationship between Sandro and Claudia who is at once happy and wracked with guilt over her missing best friend. On the rooftop of a cathedral, Sandro asks Claudia to marry him, but she is too startled by this to answer in a meaningful way. The two then check into a swank resort hotel near Messina where Sandro's business partner is staying. While Claudia goes to bed, Sandro stays up and wanders among the partying guests. Claudia spends a sleepless night waiting for him to come back to their room and as dawn breaks frantically searches for Sandro throughout the deserted public spaces of the hotel, only to find him on a couch with a costly call girl. Claudia flees them both and breaks down into tears on a vista overlooking the sea. Sandro, seemingly disgusted with himself, catches up to her.
The last scene, which has no dialogue, starkly shows Sandro's almost hopeless weakness and emptiness as he sits in tears before a blank, scarred wall. Claudia stands steadfastly beside him, while Mount Etna broods before her as if ready to erupt.[6][7]
Released in 1960, the film was booed by members of the audience during its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival (Antonioni and Vitti fled the theater); but after a second screening it won the Jury Prize[8] and went on to both international box office success and what has since been described as "hysteria."[1][2][9]
L'Avventura influenced the visual language of cinema, changing how subsequent films looked, and has been named by some critics as one of the best ever made. However, it has been criticized by others for its seemingly uneventful plot and slow pacing along with the existentialist themes.[1][2][6][7]
In 2010, it was ranked #40 in Empire magazine's "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema."[10]
| Event | Category | Winner/Nominee | Won |
|---|---|---|---|
| BAFTA Awards | Best Film | Michelangelo Antonioni | No[11] |
| Best Foreign Actress | Monica Vitti | No[11] | |
| British Film Institute Awards | Sutherland Trophy | Michelangelo Antonioni | Yes[12] |
| Cannes Film Festival | Jury Prize | Michelangelo Antonioni | Yes[8] |
Much has been made of Anna's unsolved disappearance, which Roger Ebert has described as 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."[9] Along with much of Antonioni's other work, L'Avventura is often cited as an early feminist film with strong and richly characterized female protagonists.[2]
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