L'Avventura (The Adventure) (1960)

Featured Audience Ratings

• Bob S

  
  Michelangelo Antonioni: 1912-2007

• Jonathan H

  
  Many films are called "classic." Very few advance and redefine the language of cinema. L'Avventura is such a film. What it showed was that films do not have to be structured around major events, that very little drama can happen and a film can still be fascinating to… More
  Many films are called "classic." Very few advance and redefine the language of cinema. L'Avventura is such a film. What it showed was that films do not have to be structured around major events, that very little drama can happen and a film can still be fascinating to its audience. It also showed -- and this was harder for audiences to grasp (and still is) -- that events in films do not have to be, in an obvious way, meaningful. L'Avventura presents its characters behaving according to motivations unclear to themselves as much as to the audience; they are sensitive to mood, to landscape, to things that happen, but they also behave in routine and conformist ways. None of them, except Claudia (who had, in her words, "a sensible childhood, without any money"), seems to have much consciousness of the lack of direction that afflicts them. They are, to use a word very fashionable at the time the film came out, alienated. But to say, as many critics did, that the film is "about" alienation is to miss the point. The film shows, it doesn't argue. It convinces by the sensitivity and accuracy of its observation, not by heavy signals to the audience to think this, that, or the other. More than any other film L'Avventura seems to define the spirit of a time in cinema when anything seemed possible and there was no territory into which it could not venture. (The more I think about it, post-war Italian cinema may be my favorite "genre." It didn't succumb to any filmic conventions, and approached weighty subject matter with grace and elegance.) Above all what it seeks to capture is the world of fleeting emotion, feelings which are unstable and crystallize only momentarily in the camera's gaze. After L'Avventura, Antonioni did not look back. He made three further films with Monica Vitti --The Night (1961), Eclipse (1962), and Red Desert (1964) -- each time pushing further back the frontiers of what cinema could explore. It's hard to say which of these films is the best, but L'Avventura is the one that started Antonioni on his quest, and remains the one that most clearly represents the unique nature of his art.

• AJ V

  
  I saw this movie for a class, but I'd like to see it again, I don't remember it well.

• danny d

  
  often considered by critics to be one of the 5 or so greatest films in italian cinema history, l'avventura definitely has its strengths, the greatest of which are its striking images. the locations and cinematography are some of the best ever put on film despite the picture… More
  often considered by critics to be one of the 5 or so greatest films in italian cinema history, l'avventura definitely has its strengths, the greatest of which are its striking images. the locations and cinematography are some of the best ever put on film despite the picture quality being less than par for a film in this era. the actors also played their roles well. really all around the film delivers on an overall concept that is incredibly unique. initially i was disappointed in the anti climatic nature of the end of the film, but with time ive come to get over this as the film improves in my memory. monica vitti is always beautiful and antonioni might be my favorite italian director.

• Lanning :

  
  Yes, I know, I said I wouldn't watch this first installment of Antonioni's trilogy, but what the heck. If you've already seen two of the three, why not? I mean, this is his reputed masterpiece, right? The film that the audience at Cannes booed but that the judges at… More
  Yes, I know, I said I wouldn't watch this first installment of Antonioni's trilogy, but what the heck. If you've already seen two of the three, why not? I mean, this is his reputed masterpiece, right? The film that the audience at Cannes booed but that the judges at Cannes awarded first prize. The film that changed the vocabulary, nay the very "grammar" of cinema for all future filmmakers. Ranked with the likes of <i>Citizen Kane</i> as one of the greatest of all time . . . <p>Well, it is good. I enjoyed it much more than <i>L'Eclisse</i>, though not quite as much as <i>La Notte</i>. The characters in <i>La Notte</i> are more engaging -- ironic in a trilogy about, among other things, alienation. The plot of <i>L'Avventura</i> is the most interesting piece of the puzzle for me. It is clever the way Antonioni draws the viewer into a mystery that falls by the wayside. The classic mystery disappears, like Massari, and the true mystery becomes not Masari's soon forgotten vanishing, but the troubling mystery of how far human beings have come from being human. The interconnectedness of people, that communal sharing and caring that allowed civilization to evolve and thrive, is fast slipping away under the pressures of modern life. Still, I think this idea was better rendered in <i>La Notte</i>. <p>I rarely listen to those Criterion Collection commentaries. They really can get in the way of enjoying a film. But for my third viewing, I played it. Brother. This is like the worst kind of literature teacher you could ever not want to have teach you. Instead of opening up the possibilities for interpretation, you get: <p>These images are not metaphors. They are not suggestive of the old vs. the new. They are concrete images of the old and the new. They are what we call metonymic, not metaphoric.<p> That's a rough quote. Mama mia, you would not want to spend a whole semester in a literature class where you are lectured in absolutes like that, believe me. Professor says this is this. You'd better agree. Do not argue. On exams and in papers, please parrot back what I say, if you know what's good for you. Sheesh. <p>If I were teaching the class, I might say something like: It has been argued that Antonioni plays with the ideas both of metaphor and of metonym in this film. I can see that the ancient cathedral and the modern condominium in this scene can represent the past and present -- metonyms for "the past" and "the present." But I could also argue that, in the context of this scene, ancient and modern architecture, side by side, are a metaphor for the clash between past history and present circumstance which Antonioni's characters constantly find themselves sandwiched between. <p> Begin digression . . . <p> "Excuse me, sir, can you please tell me who I can talk to?" <p> "Ahem, young man, you know you should never end a sentence with a preposition."<p>"Okay, can you please tell me who I can talk to, a--hole!" <p>. . . End digression<p> Here we see how the two characters, father and unmarried daughter, view her upcoming vacation with her boyfriend -- a clash between the moral codes of the older and the younger generation -- the two are framed by the cathedral and the condominium -- wedged between the old and the new. Much like a pretentious elder who lives by the rules of a grammar which is actually evolving.<p>After all, discussion of art should foster a multiplicity of expressed viewpoints. The possibilities should open up, if it's art worth talking about, not be shut down. But what do I know.

• Ken S

  
  I'm not really sure what happened...but it sure was nice to look at.

• Tim S

  
  Italian women are gorgeous.

• Steve K

  
  Classic and influential.

• Mike T

  
  The kind of haunting masterpiece that is capable not only of changing perspectives, but of changing lives. Antonioni's epic-length character drama is held together with intimate resignation, straying away from conventions whenever possible. This is one of the most observant and… More
  The kind of haunting masterpiece that is capable not only of changing perspectives, but of changing lives. Antonioni's epic-length character drama is held together with intimate resignation, straying away from conventions whenever possible. This is one of the most observant and depressing films about love that I have ever seen. Throughout the course of the picture, the degree of its complexity becomes clearer and by the ending it leaves an unforgettable imprint. Gorgeously made in all areas of production, with a cast of phenomenal performances. This is a cinema milestone.

• Simeon D

  
  Intelligent script and great acting, but nothing happens. 83/100

• Dimitris S

  
  And what is the brink of life anyway?So what if a close friend disappears as if the earth swallowed him(or her in our case)?The signs of the weather,of earth,of the future mean nothing,present is the intellectual stimulation we all must utilize to prove our existence.Needless to say… More
  And what is the brink of life anyway?So what if a close friend disappears as if the earth swallowed him(or her in our case)?The signs of the weather,of earth,of the future mean nothing,present is the intellectual stimulation we all must utilize to prove our existence.Needless to say it's a requirement to move on whether a misfortune or a laughter approach us,it is continuity!Antonioni's first part is the evidence...

• MJS M

  
  Whenever someone calls the works of my favorite foreign auteurs like Kurosawa or Bergman ?boring?, I have a bad habit of snobbishly scoffing at their short attention spans. This snobbery occasionally comes back to bite me as is the case with this visually inventive, yet narrativly… More
  Whenever someone calls the works of my favorite foreign auteurs like Kurosawa or Bergman ?boring?, I have a bad habit of snobbishly scoffing at their short attention spans. This snobbery occasionally comes back to bite me as is the case with this visually inventive, yet narrativly unengaging work from Michelangelo Antonioni. I have a lot of respect for what this film did for film grammar, but frankly it put me to sleep with its boring story in which seemingly nothing happens. There may come a day when the alleged brilliance of this film makes sense to me but today is not that day. That said, the first act was fairly intriguing.

• Tom S

  
  The images were stunning, but the rest... It left me with the film's oft-repeated question: "Why?"

• Linda K

  
  Not only the protagonist is alienated from us, but we, the viewers, are too alienated from the film.

Read all 14 featured audience ratings