L'Avventura

It's fascinating how unfascinating this classic movie is. I have a measly record with foreign art films of the 40s-60s. They tend to be boring. I can't say what could be different about L'Avventura. It just wanders. I'll have to look it up. If nothing else I'm interested in what other people saw in it.

I'm sick of art that's just famous for its apathy. Apathy is boring. I'm sure it felt innovative in the 60s but it's tired now. Existentialism isn't interesting when it's just apathetic, nor am I convinced we should all be calling apathetic things existentialist.

In a very heterosexual-male turn for me, I enjoyed Claudia's scenes the most, and did not enjoy Sandro at all. His hair made me very uncomfortable. It was so equine and 50-year-old-manlike for what should have been a freewheeling youth (like Claudia). Breathless did better there -- I mean I was uncomfortable with the guy in that movie too, but at least his hair was fresh and free. Sandro would have served better as Claudia's dad, or Claudia's boss, or Claudia's agent. Instead I have to watch Claudia give him undeserved affection and, ultimately, forgiveness. What an ass.

It's fun to talk about movies with inherent mysteries, like "where actually did Anna go", or "why is the yellow man standing up at the end of Blue Velvet", but depending on the execution it can be not fun at all to watch said movies. The mystery of L'Avventura is not mysterious to watch. You just soberly acknowledge "ya I actually don't know where Anna went." It's a mystery to talk about in film class, not a mystery to drag you to the edge of your seat, or even a mystery to make you wonder. You only wonder when someone else makes you wonder, like your professor, or your self-inflicted blog quota.

It's cool to have a central mystery, like "where actually did Anna go", and it's cool not to oversell it. It's even cool, in the worst form of hip, to vastly undersell it. But I'm tired of that form of hip. L'Avventura is hip in a way that doesn't age well. It's cool to talk about how uneventful L'Avventura is, but shouldn't movies be enjoyable or at least stimulating during the movie?

Despite all of this, I have a feeling the next time I talk about L'Avventura I'm going to convince myself I like it. As a matter of fact, it's exactly my kind of movie: moody, visual, mysterious. 4/4 stars.

Edit:

"texture of the prose works as much as what he says in the prose" I think that's totally fair, and in fact I love art as style, even at the expense of message or narrative. But the style must be outstanding. Maybe, in spite of my many years loving movies, film is not actually my medium, because I'm not an exceedingly visual person. L'Avventura did not stand out for visual style. Maybe it just doesn't strike like it used to, or maybe it's too visually subtle for me. I entirely agree that I miss visual cues in movies. I'm more focused on story, and overt visual cues. So why not just read instead, if story is what I care about most? Reading is hard on my attention span, and I simply enjoy movies more. Especially when they're overt in visual style. Maybe Antonioni is just too subtle for me. My visual sense is not intense. I'm much more intellectual than sensory, hence my attraction to good story. You could say L'Avventura is intellectual, but that's partly conflating intellection and art, and partly assigning intellection to something that allows intellection but doesn't inspire it. It just wasn't inspiring.

"It has appeared on Sight & Sound's list of the critics' top 10 greatest films ever made three times in a row: it was voted second in 1962,[29] fifth in 1972 and seventh in 1982.[30] In 2012, it ranked number 21 (with 43 votes) in the critics' poll and number 30 (14 votes) in the directors' poll." Notice how it just keeps going down.

"his films—a seminal body of enigmatic and intricate mood pieces—rejected action in favor of contemplation, championing image and design over character and story" like Malick, but Malick is less subtle, which I need. Not that I love Malick, but at least he's forcing an experience that Antonioni only suggests. Malick is Antonioni for the 21st century's subtlety and attention span.

"Ingmar Bergman stated in 2002 that while he considered the Antonioni films Blowup and La notte masterpieces, he found the other films boring and noted that he had never understood why Antonioni was held in such esteem. Orson Welles regretted the Italian director's use of the long take: "I don't like to dwell on things. It's one of the reasons I'm so bored with Antonioni—the belief that, because a shot is good, it's going to get better if you keep looking at it"

L'Avventura was near the top of my watch list for almost 10 years. I doubt I would have liked it any more anywhere in those 10 years, or in the prior 10. It's just one of those things.

Antonioni seemed like my type of director, like Tarkovsky: painterly and philosophical. Tarkovsky is also better to think about than to watch, though he stands out a little more than L'Avventura did, even though I'd expect to enjoy the Italian over the Russian. Tarkovsky seems a little more ambitious. The mysteries of Solaris and Stalker at least stoke a little alien fear. The mysteries of L'Avventura just involve the blasé of people, and are therefore intrinsically blasé, self-consciously so. I don't need a movie to drag me through the blasé; that's most of living. I do need a movie, though, to confront me with the alien. I can't do that in any sensory way outside fiction. So, for example, space movies like Solaris, Interstellar, and 2001 get a little boost above similarly-styled movies about people. At least those three stimulate some foreign phobias. I'm not xenophobic enough to fear movies about normal people, and I'm past finding apathy profound.