Film

User reviews of this film

• maria said...

  Posted on Jun 03 2011 10:31 the pain & beauty of Monica Vitti's melancholy character rescue this film from the perils inherent in character studies. this film is not for everyone, nor for anyone at all times (lord knows i can't watch some of Antonioni's other offerings!), but, for us fans of Vitti & Italia, it holds much power.

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• Iain Martin said...

  Posted on Dec 31 2010 18:55 This film is a lot of pretentious rubbish. There's not a lot of point in carefully constructing in-depth character portraits when the characters you're portraying are boring, stupid and completely devoid of any interesting traits which might make the audience care about them one iota. If you're going to completely sacrifice plot for character (and by God does this film sacrifice plot) the characters have to be interesting enough to make it worthwhile. In my opinion the characters in this film are not.
  It seems to me that this film has gained its reputation because it takes an approach to narrative and character development that hadn't been done before and adopts a fairly bold tactic by completely ditching a seemingly important plot thread. However, just because something is new and/or groundbreaking, doesn't mean that it's good. Films shouldn't be a chore to watch, and this one was. I wouldn't waste your time.

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• Peter said...

  Posted on May 23 2010 19:52 "The continuity is virtually nonexistent. In one scene the boat is anchored away from the island. In the next scene the boat is moored near the island with a gangway to the island. Then in the next it's anchored back off the island. In the next, it may be circling the island."
  Continuity has nothing to do with literalism, Bart.

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• guest said...

  Posted on Feb 08 2010 04:12 After the island scene, this becomes the most boring movie in the history of space-time.

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• usman khawaja said...

  Posted on Oct 27 2009 02:06 The mystique that surrounds a casual adventure on an off shore Italian island is an in depth observation of the selfishness ,corruption and total contempt of humanity by itself as an upper middle class party of jaded opulent and trendy Italians set out on a yacht to amuse themselves of their existential boredom and redundant lifestyles of luxury .
  Amongst them is Anna and Carlos ,two lovers on the brink of a doomed love affair sulking in frustration of a vacuous and deranged affair itself and they are accompanied by Anna's best friend claudia and two other fashionably pseudo-intelligent couples .
  
  The volcanic and fascinating craggy island where they roam and indulge in their capricious adventure soon turns into a deadly nightmare as anna disappears without a trace while the rest of the cast are involved in their bizarre conversations about trivial incidents in nonchalant indifference to each other .
  
  The mystery is exaggerated with a thorough wasted search by Anna's father and police and coast guards along with every authority possible but anna is never found ,and the script never gives a single clue as to what might have ensued to the disappearance of this unhappy young beautiful woman who is involved in a thoroughly disastrous affair with a handsome man who is clearly a profligate adventurer than a true lover .
  Six months later we find Carlos and Claudia engaged in a lustful affair while Anna is almost forgotten and mentioned casually as if she had never existed ,while this lustful extravaganza is being played out the character of Carlos is examined in some diligent and peculiar details and his fickle morality is revealed by his aimless and abjure actions .
  Antionioni has designed the movie in a haunting imagery where human dynamic forms move against natural and architectural visions of intense beauty in shots which are designed to perfection but he is leaving all the conclusions of this cinematic wizardry to his audience .
  
  this is ground breaking cinema and ubiquitous in it's vision of art that is both obscure yet profoundly wise as art that does not judge but rather observe without making any obvious comments .
  
  the mystique of the movie has intensified with time and age and the cinematography and landscape with the rugged coastline and baroque urbane culture fascinates the beholder with the dubious characters and their surreal existence yet the intricate dialogue is enough to give you enough clues and material to analyse these characters in light of modern human psyche and compare it to the primal human instincts and draw your own conclusions from this masterly mysterious adventure which never concludes itself but might haunt you forever .

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• Gillian Moorse said...

  Posted on Sep 05 2009 21:02 This film is so awful it is quite entertaining! The women come out of the sea absolutely bone dry and then pretend to dry themselves and their hair when they take their swimming hats off is dry and falls into an immaculate hair style immediately, It's all so hammish with wooden actors who seem to have been picked up for their physical attractiveness and they don't have modicum of talent. Watch it will friends over a bottle of wine and have a good laugh but thrilling, gripping or believable it most certainly isn't!!

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• Technoguy said...

  Posted on Nov 04 2008 14:21 The first in a trilogy of films about couples in a crisis, L’Avventura takes place
  in an Italy enjoying an economic boom. The couple in L’Avventura is made up
  of Monica Vitti and Gabrielle Ferzetti. Sandro (Ferzetti) is an architect ,an intellectual, as in all three films, with the story of the same couple almost. An
  event, the loss of Sandro’s mistress(Anna),while out on Islands of Aeolia.
  nrth of Sicily, precedes the coming together of Claudia (Vitti) and Sandro as
  new lovers.The sense of alienation and existentialist absurdity are captured
  by the framing of the scenes and the sense of drawn out time, and the way
  black and white contrasts play out over a range of greys. Feelings of love
  that have been around for thousands of years do not find easy accommodation
  in a consumerist world. The ancient vase that is found becomes broken, old fine
  buildings are made into police barracks. All the characters look a bit lost with
  the loss of middle class values. People do not relate easily to each other nor
  live their love affairs. Beyond the narrative the framing captures the visual
  poetry of loss, the way empty spaces emerge through his compositions, the
  way he places actors in disharmony with their environments. His camera probes
  the trace of the loss on the couple’s actions, within an in-between space,where
  things, people, close to emptiness , are about to change or events are about to
  turn, in this void or absence. Moving from frame to frame brings out a sense of
  uneasy vigilance and instability in the audience viewing a world where feelings are adrift, where something(not nothing) is always happening on screen. His major
  innovation is a way of looking at things in the world. He explores states of
  feeling and breakdowns in communication,emptiness,alertness,vacancy,
  heightened awareness of others and oneself. We see bodies moving in space and a perception of the world no longer determined by a narrative framework. The
  thing filmed is the initial situation of loss and the echo of that loss. All
  Antonioni is filming(and why his films are hard to define) is what comes afterwards,
  te trace that’s left behind.

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• Bart said...

  Posted on Mar 01 2008 17:58 This is one of the worst pictures I've seen in my life!
  The acting is pathetic. The actors seem to wander aimlessly into a scene, glance meaninglessly at the camera and then wander out of frame. None of them seem to have any idea about what they're doing or feeling.
  The continuity is virtually nonexistent. In one scene the boat is anchored away from the island. In the next scene the boat is moored near the island with a gangway to the island. Then in the next it's anchored back off the island. In the next, it may be circling the island.
  It's as if Antonioni deliberately used the worst takes he had. He could not have made a more dreadful picture if he had tried.
  Gripping, electric, majestic, engrossing are not words one should associate with this picture. Amateurish, however, is a perfect fit.
  I assume that a group of intellectual snobs decided this was a masterpiece and the followers just went along.

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