Michelangelo Antonioni

Lately, I've gotten hooked on the films of Michelangelo Antonioni. After watching the masterful Blow-Up several months ago, I've finally checked out his loose 'trilogy' on modern discontent- L'Avventura, La Notte, and L'Eclisse.



L'Avventura, which opened the trilogy and made Antonioni an art house superstar, is my favorite of the three. Here's a film which abandons narrative significance and relies entirely on the beauty of its images and the emotions of its characters. And the images are indeed beautiful- it may be the most hypnotic black-and-white film I've ever seen. To me, it encapsulates Antonioni's cinema better than any other film of his I've watched. It also doesn't hurt that L'Avventura was released the same great year as Psycho, Breathless, La Dolce Vita, and Peeping Tom.





La Notte is an extremely worthy follow-up to L'Avventura and bears striking similarities to La Dolce Vita, with its portrayal of Marcello Mastroianni as an ennui-striken intellectual wandering throughout Italy's nightlife. It has a slow start, but once night descends, I fall in love with the film- it creates the same kind of atmosphere that led to my deep admiration for Fellini's masterpiece.





L'Eclisse is my least favorite of the three, but it competes with L'Avventura as Monica Vitti's best performance and Antonioni's boldest direction. To me, the plot isn't quite as absorbing as the other two, but I will mention that the last few minutes of this film feature some of the most transcendental imagery I've ever seen in a film. That alone confirms L'Eclisse as a fitting conclusion to this magnificent trilogy.



Ultimately, the three films are a series of tragedies. All feature people surrounded by a fascinating and meticulously constructed society but nothing to make of it- their lives have no true meaning. This is not pessimistic. Characters in Antonioni's world try desperately to love, but cannot. Therefore, they cannot live, because no one can truly live without love.



So, what do other MoFos think of Antonioni? I'm planning on watching Red Desert and The Passenger next.

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I've seen all three long ago and have more or less the same opinion but trying to add without much memory of them would be fluff and I don't like fluff but good job on the post though.

I think I have some mini-reviews (L'avventura, L'eclisse, Story of a Love Affair) in here. It would be much more honest and accurate to read these than to have me write some summary now. I realize now that I never reviewed La Notte, Blow-up, Red Desert and Zabriskie Point here, although I've watched them all in the last year or two. Sorry.

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I would say Blow-up is the best of Antonioni. Not that I've seen a lot from him but I did not think too highly of his so called alienation-trilogy and The Passenger.

I actually preferred De Palma's Blow Out which bore similarities to Blow-up.

I've seen the trilogy. On the contrary, my favourite is L'Eclisse. Blow-up, Red Desert and Passenger are great movies as well so make sure to watch them.

Me too, though I love both of them

I enjoy his works very much and unlike Orson Welles, I appreciate the long shots, but you need to be "in the mood" to absorb the images and situations of the characters. There's no plot, nor is there very much of a story either. It's like the cliche of saying less is saying more. They are beautiful tone poems and I have never found him boring. My favorites are L'Avventura, The Passenger (which I watched in theaters when it was re-released back in 2005 and I must have been the only person in the theater, and of course Red Desert. La Notte did remind me a lot of La Dolce Vita, not coincidentally in part because of the leading star, but I enjoyed L'Ecclise more, though I haven't seen that one in years. Blow-Up is also great.

I still need to watch Zabriskie Point and a couple others.

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