Michelangelo Antonioni was nearing 50, with a handful of impressive features behind him, when he found his true subject and broke thru internationally with this enigmatic classic. A contrarian in the midst of Italy’s successful Il Boom economy, his reaction might be summed up as ‘is that all there is?’ Rejecting the notion that No Man Is An Island, Antonioni tells us EACH man (or woman) is an island unto themself. It’s his only theme. Following films like a portrait studio offering to roll down different backdrops (identity, environment, class, murder), but with main subject unchanged. So choose your first Antonioni carefully; you can only get that big initial reaction once. As first in the series, L’AVVENTURA is a good choice, though BLOW-UP/’66, with London Mod Era trimmings and a half-hour shorter the better intro. L’AVVENTURA, first of four with Monica Vitti, is the one where a small yacht’s-worth of difficult/unpleasant Euro-Trash types (lots of LA DOLCE VITA/’60 in here) lose (misplace?) one of their own on an island stop. The point less how they react to the missing friend than how they don’t react. Three days later, affairs and business back to normal; as if she’d never been. Chilly stuff , chic & elegant as haute couture. And possibly as unnecessary.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Check out the young painter one of the yachters picks up once she's back on dry land. In hair and pictures, the kid's a ringer for young Picasso. And you thought Antonioni didn't have sense of humor.
DOUBLE-BILL: Though it has its modern-day defenders, Antonioni never recovered his Prince of Disconnected Modernism & Existential Ennui rep after he fell flat on his Counter-Culture face in the hapless ZABRISKIE POINT/’70. He knew it, too. Barely one feature per decade after it. But THE PASSENGER/’74 does at least manage to get into gear.
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