L'avventura (1960)

 Michelangelo Antonioni's "L'avventura"

Michelangelo Antonioni's 1960 film "L'avventura" seems to live in infamy. The greatest moment of infamy for this widely discussed film was its premiere at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival. At the screening, it received a notorious reaction. The entire film, despite its serious tone, was met with widespread laughter, joined by boos. The boos were usually hurled during scenes and sequences where nothing really seemed to be happening to further the film's plot. The actress and star of the film, Monica Vitti, was so distraught by this reaction that she fled the theater. The next day, director Antonioni received a list of signatures from established filmmakers and writers declaring "L'avventura" the best film screened at the festival. After a second screening, the film went on to win the Jury Prize. This hysteria over the film and the disparate reactions were the subject of much publicity. When the film was released to a wider audience, it was universally praised. So, the question becomes...why did "L'avventura" received such a reaction out of audiences? 

A lot of why there was such a volatile reaction to the film has to do with the film's plot and pacing, both of which are extremely strange and unmoving. The film centers on a young woman named Anna, who embarks on a yachting trip along with Mediterranean with her friend Claudia. Claudia is there to meet up with her fiancé, Sandro. Claudia is facing a moment of crisis in which she no longer wishes to be with Sandro. While out on a small island, Claudia disappears. The remainder of the film follows Anna and Sandro as they attempt to locate Claudia, as they believe she somehow left the island. Along the way, Anna and Sandro end up in a romance of their own. 

The plot of the film seems relatively simple enough. So why all the hubbub? I feel that when the film starts with the Mediterranean excursion and the subsequent initial disappearance, it feels relatively in-tune and normal, despite the malaise and uncertainty of the characters. However, whenever Anna and Sandro begin their more intensified search and their subsequent romance, the film suddenly changes momentum. The search for Anna begins to become irrelevant, despite her absence being ever-present. Once the momentum changes, the film ventures into strange territory. 

This strange territory the film ventures into can be seen as something that film essayist Geoffrey Nowell-Smith calls "anti-Hitchcock." With Hitchcock, along with the basic fundamentals of storytelling, events that happen and decisions that are made are all logical events and decisions that extend from preexisting events and logical reasoning. Characters make decisions off the information they (and the audience) are provided and their motives are typically certain and clear to the extend that audiences witness events that lead characters to make said decisions. 

What Antonioni does with "L'avventura" is something that extraordinarily ventures from this model. In his film, events simply happen and nothing signifies that these events are even remotely significant. The events that unfold are simply by happenstance or chance and no set of prerequisite events ever set these events into motion. Because of this, very little 'drama' actually occurs. Tension does not build from a series of subsequent events. Tension instead builds obscurely, if at all. There are scenes in which very little is happening and when things do occur, they do so out of obscurity rather than a need within the story. The same can be said of the characters, as their decisions appear somewhat illogical and are based on no previous understanding of them or their circumstances.

With this, the film and its plot seem directionless. Its characters behave with no congruency. The drama becomes absent and when it does arise, it arises without necessitation within the story. Why would Antonioni film his story with no sense of drama or logic? After all, the Cannes audience booed because they felt that nothing was actually happening in the story and the characters and situations contained nothing to actually engage with. 

The reason for this disconnect is due to Antonioni's focus on capturing a psychological connection with his characters. In this case, characters are in a bland malaise. They are all wealthy and, because of this fundamental 'comfort,' all of their actions seem to stem from boredom, uncertainty, or alienation. That is why you feel so bored by the situations of the film: the characters feel bored. This is why none of the characters' behaviors feel grounded in anything logical - because they are simply acting on whatever fleeting impulses they have in that moment. None of the events that happen in the film are at all meaningful. So too are the lives of our characters: without meaning. As Geoffrey Nowell-Smith puts it, "[the film] presents its characters behaving according to motivations as unclear to themselves as to the audience; they are sensitive to mood, to landscape, to things that happen...None of them, except Claudia...seem to have much consciousness of the lack of direction that afflicts them."

This weird and spellbinding result is something that throws audiences completely for a loop. The entire film is more of a mood than a story. Nothing that happens is consequential, none of the characters have any sort of engagement with the viewer, and nothing presented to us is ever clear enough to signify any connection to anything. This is precisely why audiences laughed and booed at Cannes. The film intentionally alienates itself from the viewer. It doesn't provide any sort of clarity or point. It's directionless and adrift from even itself. Emotions are fleeting and events are unstable or are unclear to their intention. 

Because of the confounding nature of the film, many have considered it, along with the work of Antonioni, as pretentious arthouse snobbery that holds no true meaning. Many consider it purely aesthetic with no real element of artistry. I would beg to differ - anyone saying this is missing the entire point. Being bored by the film, its detachment from the viewer, and its lack of obligation in providing any semblance of story, is in itself the art of its "story" because that is the connection Antonioni is psychologically examining within the characters themselves. The story itself is a mood brought out of the characters' psyches. 

Whether or not you can engage with the film is not an issue with the film itself. In fact, it is the very point of the film all together. To me, that in itself is a finely crafted piece of artistic work. Whether or not you actually enjoy it and even want to bother watching it is another thing entirely. But, you can't deny that something that makes you feel the desired affect of its director is something of an artistic achievement. I feel like I had similar reactions, as well. The film alienated itself from me and I struggled with grasping its concepts and the point of its story. However, that irritation or disconnect you feel completely coincides with the whole point itself.