L'AVVENTURA. (1960) DIRECTED BY MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI. STARRING MONICA VITTI, LEA MASSARI, GABRIELE FERZETTI, DOMINIQUE BLANCHAR AND ESMERALDA RUSPOLI. REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
Picture the scene. A bunch of bored rich
chums are sailing around the Mediterranean in a fabulous yacht.
They're heading towards the Aeolian Islands north of Sicily. The sun
is shining, the sea is blue and (apparently) shark-free,
and all's well with the world. Or it should be, at any rate. Are the
bored rich chums happy with their lot? They bloody well aren't, the
ungrateful pups.
They're a
sorry lot, this bunch. Anna is a beautiful rich spoilt brunette, the
daughter of a millionaire. Her boyfriend Sandro is handsome and rich too,
but the petulant and capricious Anna isn't happy with him. She isn't
happy with anything.
Probably
the result of being born with a whole canteen of silver spoons in her
privileged, aristocratic mouth. Yes, I'm jealous and bitter, did I
ever pretend otherwise...? Only kidding. I'd hate to
be that rich and able to have anyone or anything I ever wanted.
Where's the challenge in that? Sniffle.
Claudia is
Anna's best friend, who had an ordinary impoverished upbringing like
the rest of us Joe Soaps, haha. She's also staggeringly beautiful,
with the most fantastic bright blonde hair you ever saw and a mobile,
expressive face and lovely eyes. Unlike
her spoilt brat of a bezzie mate, we get the distinct impression that
Claudia would actually appreciate the
finer things in life if they ever inexplicably fell into her lap.
Patrizia
and Giulia are truly awful women,
rich bored housewives who think nothing of cheating on their older,
inattentive hubbies. Giulia certainly would, anyway. Her sexual fling
with a seventeen-year-old artist who paints only naked women is a
fine example of the most blatant, flagrant adultery you'll ever see.
What a hussy she is! Oh yes, did I forget to mention that I'm
judgemental now? Well, I am. 'Tis great craic, as
we say here in Ireland.
So, does
money bring you happiness? This motley crew of lost souls don't seem
to be happy at all. They're bored, lonely, sexually frustrated and
constantly seeking new thrills to fill the gaping emptiness in their
psyches. You'd be hard pushed to find a character you like. Claudia,
ironically the only one of 'em who isn't stinking rich, is the only
one of the group who seems content to be where she is. Go figure, haha. Patrizia's mongrel of a mutt is adorable, so he gets a pass too...!
When
Anna goes missing on the island after a head-wrecking heart-to-heart
with Sandro about their relationship (you know, the kind
that makes a guy's balls shut up shop and disappear back up inside
his body!), the group dynamics
undergo something of a seismic shift.
Sandro and
Claudio discover that they are madly attracted to each other during
the search that follows. Claudia feels a total heel for betraying the
missing Anna, but she's not able to fight her feelings for long. Plus
Sandro is incredibly handsome and manly, not a callow boy at all like
Mr. Artist. They give in to their primal urges and then, of course,
they have to take the consequences...
The
scenery in the film is stunning. The shots of the stormy sea and the
rocky, stony island in the driving rain are just gorgeous. All
the Italian locations, whether
we're shown whitewashed old buildings in an ancient town square or a panoramic
vista of mountains spread out before us like a painting, are quite simply to die
for. Kudos to Aldo Scavarda for his marvellous cinematography.
Monica Vitti
as Claudia is infinitely watchable. The film-makers sensibly take
every opportunity to show her hair being blown madly about by the
wind. She has
meaningless conversations with her new lover about nothing,
conversations that drive them both mad and seem to mirror exactly
every pointless conversation between dissatisfied men and women ever.
We can all relate, unfortunately.
There are
long periods of time when little or nothing seems to be happening, which
apparently annoyed the viewers when the film was first released. That
didn't stop this visually gorgeous film from winning the Jury Prize
at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival and many other prestigious awards
besides.
You'll
hopefully be happy to hear that L'AVVENTURA, which
means 'THE ADVENTURE' in
English, is out on Blu-Ray this June
(2016) courtesy of THE CRITERION COLLECTION and
SONY PICTURES HOME ENTERTAINMENT.
It comes complete with extra features and the black-and-white picture
is just so clear and sharp, it's truly wonderful to look at.
The
film won't give you a nice jolly insight into the lives of shiny
happy people all having a great time- rather the opposite!- but it
certainly knows its onions vis-à-vis
human relationships.
It's so
very Italy in the early 'Sixties too, so very European, with the women
driving along the coast road in open-topped cars with their hair tied
up in scarves and the naughty Italian men leching over women as if
they've never seen breasts and hips before. That last bit was a bit
alarming, actually...!
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA
HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
You can contact Sandra at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
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