L'Avventura  

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L'Avventura ("The Adventure") is a 1960 Italian drama film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni. Developed from a story by Antonioni with co-writers Elio Bartolini and Tonino Guerra, the film is about the disappearance of a young woman (Lea Massari) during a boating trip in the Mediterranean, and the subsequent search for her by her lover (Gabriele Ferzetti) and her best friend (Monica Vitti). It was filmed on location in Rome, the Aeolian Islands, and Sicily in 1959 under difficult financial and physical conditions. The film is noted for its unusual pacing, which emphasizes visual composition, mood, and character over traditional narrative development.

L'Avventura was nominated for numerous awards and was awarded the Jury Prize at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival. The film made Monica Vitti an international star. According to an Antonioni obituary, the film "systematically subverted the filmic codes, practices and structures in currency at its time." L'Avventura is the first film of a trilogy by Antonioni, followed by La Notte (1961) and L'Eclisse (1962).

Synopsis

L'avventura has an unusual narrative structure in which the apparently important central mystery is gradually forgotten and left unsolved. The story begins with a group of rich couples from Rome who take a boat trip and visit a virtually unpopulated volcanic island off the coast of Sicily. One of them, a young woman named Anna, wanders off and vanishes without a trace. The others search for her, but then give up, gradually adjust to her disappearance and drift back into their own lives. The rest of the story is somewhat centered on the relationship that develops between Anna's lover and her best friend. The final scene has nothing directly to do with Anna (except perhaps for the thought that her fate is unknowable) but much with how people cope with themselves and each other.

Cast

Responses

Released in 1960, the film was booed by some members of the audience during its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival; however, it won the Prix le Premier Regard. Although the film influenced the visual language of cinema, forever changing how subsequent movies looked, and has been named by some critics as one of the best ever made, it has been criticized by others for its uneventful plot, allegedly slow pacing and existentialist themes. Along with much of Antonioni's other work, L'avventura is often cited as an early feminist film with strong and richly characterized female protagonists.

See also

• Tintarella di luna/Mai