While searching for a woman who has gone missing on a deserted island, the woman's best friend and fiancée slowly fall in love, to the point where they virtually forget her existence
Anna (Lea Massari), the girl who disappears, isn't a very likable sort. Selfish, fickle and aimless, she typifies the sense of ennui which seems to surround all the characters in Michelangelo Antonioni's breakthrough film. The opening half-hour of the film is as aimless as the characters aboard Sandro's (Gabriele Ferzetti) yacht, a smug and smirking bunch who crack humourless quips. There's Raimundo and his wife, who are probably the most grounded of the group; Corrado, who constantly snipes at his wife Giulia 's literalism (he's got a point); Anna and Sandro, both of whom seem to have drifted into an engagement that one is unsure of and the other indifferent to, and Claudia (the gorgeous Monica Vitti) who is the only faintly sympathetic character amongst them.
The film is made up of two halves, and things go pretty much as you'd expect following Anna's disappearance. Her worried friend's search the island before they split up – some returning to the mainland to alert the authorities while the others remain to continue the search. It's only when the police arrive that things start diverging from the norm. Sandro begins to overtly display his attraction to Claudia, much to her initial discomfort, and as the search for Anna moves from the island to the mainland, the impression is gradually given that, as they drift into a relationship, both Sandro and Claudia forget what they are looking for.
How profound, you might think. Well, yes and no – or maybe.
One thing that struck me about reviews for this film is how they almost all praise the film without really attempting to explain – or seeming to understand, for that matter – what it was about in anything other than the most general terms, and I'd challenge anyone to divine exactly what was at the core of Antonioni's thinking when he devised the film. Quite frankly, the film is so impenetrable on anything other than a general level that it leaves itself accessible to any interpretation you wish to attach to it. Great if you're an up-and-coming filmmaker out to make a name for yourself, but not so wonderful if you're hoping for some kind of understanding of what you are watching. For this reason I sometimes wonder whether some of these classic films are given 10/10 simply because they have been universally hailed as classics and appear near the top of all the critics' all-time greatest movies lists.
The film looks great: interesting locations, handsome and beautiful actors, and truly outstanding cinematography. The character of the shallow, self-serving Sandro is the most interesting and I would like to have seen it focused on in a little more depth. His motives, and those of most of the characters, however, are too obscure to be understood, which, I suppose, provides us with the film's second unsolved mystery
Anna (Lea Massari), the girl who disappears, isn't a very likable sort. Selfish, fickle and aimless, she typifies the sense of ennui which seems to surround all the characters in Michelangelo Antonioni's breakthrough film. The opening half-hour of the film is as aimless as the characters aboard Sandro's (Gabriele Ferzetti) yacht, a smug and smirking bunch who crack humourless quips. There's Raimundo and his wife, who are probably the most grounded of the group; Corrado, who constantly snipes at his wife Giulia 's literalism (he's got a point); Anna and Sandro, both of whom seem to have drifted into an engagement that one is unsure of and the other indifferent to, and Claudia (the gorgeous Monica Vitti) who is the only faintly sympathetic character amongst them.
The film is made up of two halves, and things go pretty much as you'd expect following Anna's disappearance. Her worried friend's search the island before they split up – some returning to the mainland to alert the authorities while the others remain to continue the search. It's only when the police arrive that things start diverging from the norm. Sandro begins to overtly display his attraction to Claudia, much to her initial discomfort, and as the search for Anna moves from the island to the mainland, the impression is gradually given that, as they drift into a relationship, both Sandro and Claudia forget what they are looking for.
How profound, you might think. Well, yes and no – or maybe.
One thing that struck me about reviews for this film is how they almost all praise the film without really attempting to explain – or seeming to understand, for that matter – what it was about in anything other than the most general terms, and I'd challenge anyone to divine exactly what was at the core of Antonioni's thinking when he devised the film. Quite frankly, the film is so impenetrable on anything other than a general level that it leaves itself accessible to any interpretation you wish to attach to it. Great if you're an up-and-coming filmmaker out to make a name for yourself, but not so wonderful if you're hoping for some kind of understanding of what you are watching. For this reason I sometimes wonder whether some of these classic films are given 10/10 simply because they have been universally hailed as classics and appear near the top of all the critics' all-time greatest movies lists.
The film looks great: interesting locations, handsome and beautiful actors, and truly outstanding cinematography. The character of the shallow, self-serving Sandro is the most interesting and I would like to have seen it focused on in a little more depth. His motives, and those of most of the characters, however, are too obscure to be understood, which, I suppose, provides us with the film's second unsolved mystery