Often seen as a seminal film of the 1960s, it isn't. But L'Aventura is a seminal film of the 1950s, and very far ahead of its time. The story centers around the disappearance of a young woman who is on a day excursion to a volcanic island in the Aeolian chain north of Sicily. Her companions remain behind to search for her, while the main party goes to summon aid from the coast guard. A major search of the island turns up nothing. What happened to the woman? Several hints are dropped, and it seems as if she left the island on a fishing boat, or perhaps with a group of smugglers. Her description is given out and a few sightings are reported. But she never turns up again. The missing woman, Anna, is with her fiancee Sandro, and her best friend Claudia (played by the incomparable Monica Vitti). Why would she choose to disappear?
Well, a few moments spent with her miserable fiancee will reveal enough reason. He is a louse, first class. Anna no longer wants to marry him (failure to communicate), and I think has chosen to escape him completely. But there is reason to think that after leaving the island with whomever, misadventure soon followed her. The first half of the movie is completely engrossing, especially once Anna goes missing. The second half kind of fades away to nothing, gradually, until it ends in a relationship trap for Claudia. No more than two days after his fiancee goes missing, he is putting moves on Claudia, her best friend. One of the lowest points of the film is when she takes a train and tries to leave him behind, but at the last second he runs and catches the back car. He is literally the character who spills black ink all over this picture (from a later scene where he deliberately destroys an art student's meticulous drawing).
It's kind of difficult for viewers to swallow that Claudia does not already have a boyfriend or lover as the picture opens, and even harder to swallow that she would fall in love with creepy Sandro. Or that she would stay with him at the end, after he cheated on her already. It seems Anna had much more sense by leaving him. The story becomes distracting, even as they continue to search for Anna throughout Italy. There are a few very disturbing scenes that show the Italian male to be no better than a wolf in heat, and Sandro certainly lives up to that reputation. Is he the best that Claudia can attain? Hardly. But as Antonioni obviously knew, good men are hard to come by. Claudia, weakened by the loss of her best friend, is vulnerable. And so she loses, big time, like several of the wives we have already encountered in the film.
This film came out the same year as Fellini's La Dolce Vita, and three years before Goddard's Contempt. The photography and sound in the present film are unparalleled for its time. The sound of wind, thunder, rain, the sea, and leaves blowing in trees are matched beautifully by the very sparse music, often just a solo clarinet. Even the 2nd half, which brings us down and more down in spirit as it goes on, has many moments of sheer poetry. But the best reason to watch is Monica Vitti. She has a face that was made for motion picture cameras, with a range of expression that can change slowly from one emotion to another, or instantaneously, as need be. Watching her face is the best possible reason to watch this film. It comes in tied for 72nd place in the latest Sight and Sound poll.
Sunday was Full Moon celebration. We hadn't chosen an opera for a few months now, so it was time. Out came Wagner's Tristan and Isolde, running four hours on ten record sides. We made it through, though! It was a humid and rainy day, and we needed a break from our flooring project in the music room. A blueberry cake-like thing was baked, we substituted Wagner for Bach during our pancake breakfast, and we spent much of the day listening. We have the Berlin Philharmonic version with Karajan conducting, and Jon Vickers as Tristan. A great performance overall, but the orchestra often overpowers the singers. Probably the most famous ending of any opera ever written.
Warm and very humid lately, with a fair amount of rain landing in our yard. Grass cutting tomorrow. Hopefully Detroit on Thursday, for a visit to John King Books, and perhaps a walk downtown. Ciao, baby.
Mapman Mike
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