Michelangelo Antonioni’s second feature, a merciless/mirthless look at mid-level commercial moviemaking in the early post-WWII Italian ‘Boom’ years, made before he found his signature ‘Every Man An Island’ theme. But, much like Roberto Rossellini in DOV'È LA LIBERTÀ...?/’54, satire proves a tough nut to crack when you've got no humor in your DNA. Frame-worthy compositions in architecture & interior design make their points, but only get you so far in this context, leaving no mark. And mile-a-minute gabble at party scenes give off no more comic edge then undercranked/speeded-up action scenes. Lucia Bosé plays the shopgirl-turned-movie-ingenue, hoping to move past her specialty in surface glamor & sex to please a producer she’s married in haste. No more rolls in the hay when she could be starring as Joan of Arc! Naturally, everyone loses their shirt (except for Lucia which is why the film bombs), but she licks her wounds in a brief, unsatisfying affair before learning a lesson from older, wised-up co-star Alain Cuny, stealing the pic. So, back to that provocative, unfinished romantic drivel her husband objected to, just the thing to get everyone out of hock. Then on to new projects: upscale stuff for him/trash for our quickly aging heroine. Now, sadder, wiser, lonelier. Seeing Antonioni take this seriously is a bit odd. Or is he sending it up with an edge so fine we miss it? (It might be a prime Lana Turner vehicle like last year’s THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL.) Shot for shot, very watchable (Antonioni a natural fashionista in the image department), but you'll see why the film gets overlooked.
DOUBLE-BILL: Luchino Visconti, working from a Cesare Zavattini story, brings bitter humor & humanity to his behind-the-scenes at Cinecitta in BELLISSIMA/’51. OR: For Antonioni before he was fully formed, intriguingly balanced between traditional narrative and permanent existential crisis, LE AMICHE/’55.
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