i must have seen a different film!!

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The acting in this movie is really good.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

When this film was screened at the "Cannes Film Festival" in 1960, it was booed by members of the audience (Antonioni and Vitti even fled the theater). According to film critic and film professor Gene Youngblood, people booed during long sequences where, supposedly, nothing happened to further the film's plot. I understand why it had a rough start, because it's very easy to miss its deeper meaning. However, after looking up a couple essays, I now understand why it's as popular as it is.After a woman named Anna disappears while on a boating trip, her boyfriend, Sandro, attempts to find her. Once they make it back to the city, however, he soon forgets about her and falls in love with Claudia, one of her friends.I think the film's purpose is to have you ask the question: Why would Anna run away? This film uses the actions of the characters to answer this question. Shortly after she disappears, Sandro begins forcing himself on Claudia as they search for her on the island. At first, she shies away from his advances, but when they make it back to the city, she begins to fall in love with him as well, betraying her friend. Throughout the film, their relationship continues to grow to a point where Claudia confesses that she's afraid of Anna returning, because if she does, Sandro might return to her. She then finds Sandro making love to another woman in a hotel. These two scenes show the themes of this film at their finest as it shows how unfaithful both of them are to Anna. I also feel like the film's purpose isn't solely to show why Anna ran away, but also to create a recreation of their relationship since the ending shows Sandro cheating on Claudia as well as Anna. Then, you have the final scene where the two characters, presumably, realize why Anna left as they cry together on a bench.I've seen quite a few people bring up this interpretation, but I feel like there are a few other details which are also important to the film. The first scene happens shortly after they first notice Anna disappear. Once that happens, Sandro says that type of behavior is typical. This hints that Anna tried running away several times in the past. Another vital scene is while Claudia walks in the streets alone, every single man stares at her as she walks by. This could indicate that another reason why Anna ran away was because she hated the society she lived in as well as her friends. Also relative to Anna disliking her friends, when Claudia meets up with her boating friends in Palermo, nobody seems to take Anna's disappearance seriously except Claudia. This is all the more reason to believe that Anna disliked her friends. The most important detail, however, is Sandro's disaffection caused by his failure to maintain his career as an architect. How this affects him is shown in the scene where he spills ink on a students' architectural drawing. This is also shown when Claudia runs into a paint store to hide when she mistakes a woman walking by Sandro to be Anna. Once Sandro walks inside, he stops her from buying a can of paint, highlighting his disaffection towards architecture.I've seen a lot of people praise the cinematography. However, I'm mixed on the way it was shot. I loved the part of the film which took place on the island as it felt like a barren landscape. Not only did this make for some visually striking scenes such as Claudia observing the sun rising as she stepped out of a shack, but it also seemed foreboding and unrelenting. There was the constant feeling that if one of them were to step over a hill, they would be confronted by an endless array of rocks, lowering the chances that they'd be able to locate Anna. Once they got off the island, however, this feeling was gone and the cinematography lost a lot of the power it had during the first hour. There are probably good reasons for why not to have the rest of the film take place on the island, but the scenery is so good, I can't help but feel an absence from the film in terms of its visuals. There were a few instances where we would see barren landscapes outside of a city, but these shots didn't give me the same atmospheric feeling I felt in the first hour because the characters weren't particularly in the middle of them like they were while they stayed on the island. Despite the visual shortcomings of the latter parts of the film (the visuals may grow on me in the future though), I still appreciated the several stunning shots cinematographer Aldo Scavarda was able to capture on the island.In conclusion, this was a really good movie. Partly due to the visual aspect, it may not quite reach perfection for me, but I completely understand why it often makes "Best films of all time" lists since it's unique in the way of its deeper meaning. I can see my opinion of it increasing if I give it another viewing a few years down the road.

Of all the directors in the Italian Neorealism movement, there isn't one quite as transformative over the entirety of his career than Michelangelo Antonioni. Through the span of two decades, he goes from using the soap-opera conventions of "Story of a Love Affair" to the rule breaking, Godard-esque, posh, hipster phenomenon of "Blow-Up". It's a long a vibrant career for one of the world's most cherished filmmakers. The films he made in between, however, think about the troubles of the human couple, and our inability to make rational decisions all the time when it comes to love and lust. "La Notte" and "Red Desert" both experiment the complexities of the human experience, through relationships and betrayals of relationships. Of the films leading up to "Blow-Up", one in particular is hailed as the best example of his curiosity of the unstable human character, and that it is the picture, "L'Avventura". Considering the genre of romance, this I would assume is the "Lawrence of Arabia" of said genre. It's an epic take on a frighteningly realistic idea that we all may or may not have considered when in a rocky relationship. The question is, is infidelity really worth it, when no one is looking? "L'Avventura" opens with the establishment of Sandro and Anna, a couple in a stage of deterioration. They try so hard to put the passion back into their relationship, but they just hate each other. The scene when Sandro visits Anna in her room, the negative chemistry between the two is simply brilliant. Anna kisses his lips, when she really wants to bite his face off. You can see the hatred between them building with every moment. As a way to spice things up, they take a yacht trip with another couple off the coast of Sicily, to visit the towering islands that make up the coast. This is one of the moments where I fell in love with the movie the most. Antonioni uses the entire space of the frame absolutely tremendously. As the yacht approached the island of Basiluzzo, it just leaves you in awe. The calm ocean flowing as the yacht approaches a huge mass of land, which seemed separated from all of human life. When it comes to location scouting, Antonioni couldn't have attempted to find a better one. This is one the most beautiful environments ever captured on cinema. In essence, the first hour of the movie on the island captures the spirit of the characters. You get the feeling of isolation, anger, fear and uncertainty, especially in the scenes where the couples search for Anna when she goes missing. When Claudia runs out to the cliff during the stormy evening, and screams Anna's name in desperation, we all feel the same way. The rain just pours down on the spiky rocks as everyone begins to lose their sense of reason as to where Anna is. What is arguably even more haunting than the environment of the first hour of the picture, is of course the relationship that buds between Claudia and Sandro for the rest of the picture. It's truly a shocking turn of events. Without even second guessing himself, he moves on to another women after spending the night searching for his wife with her. All bets are off, it seems, with finding and rekindling his love for Anna. Antonioni is telling us that love can change on the flip of a dime. Once we lose track of what we have, we have no problem moving on to the next lover we can find. The fragility of relationships, as Antonioni has it, is very dire. The end of the movie is what moved me the most, and seemed frightening to so many people when the film was released. Out of the clear blue, in the night after a lavish party, Anna returns to reconcile and make love with Sandro. When Claudia runs away, visibly upset, Sandro follows her outside. They meet at the edge, atop a building, as Sandro weeps, for he now love Claudia, but now knows that Anna being alive will haunt him forever. Claudio comforts him, and the film ends. It's a shocking end. Antonioni frames it an astounding way, as he follows the characters around the environment as they collapse under the heap of temptation and desperation. The music even builds to a screeching finale. The whole movie ends more like a thriller, and less like a romantic-drama, which was such a unique creative choice for Antonioni. This ending in particular is what separates "L'Avventura" from any other movie in its genre. It stuns you with its sexiness, and blindsides you at the end for falling into its trap. "L'Avventura" is a haunting romantic-thriller, and an excellent Antonioni film that exemplifies his incredible gift at storytelling. Nothing is ever subtle in any of his films, and that's what I enjoy most about them. They hit you hard, when you are least expecting it. Even if you don't know it at first, and I certainly didn't, "L'Avventura" is going to stick with me.

Wow! Okay. Wow! If I had been in the audience at the first showing in Cannes, I would have felt I was amongst kindred souls.Great reputations don't impress me. I have to see it myself. I have given it the benefit of the doubt by bothering to read several of the comments here. I'm glad there are those of you that got something special out of this film. A good editor with a sharp knife could have improved this film considerably. Even that would still not be enough for me.Certainly the cinematography was beautiful. I just returned from a trip to Sicily and that was the initial motivations for viewing this film. It turns out that even that was not enough for me.I don't mind that Antonioni's motivation for doing the film was to explore the delicacy of human relations. I do mind that he disguised his purpose for so long. Okay, I get it that Anna brings it on herself to encourage Sandro's wandering eye. But Claudia's motivation is a mystery to me. Antonioni spends too little time motivating Claudia. Even the kiss on he boat is not nearly enough. Sandro didn't appear to be THAT good a kisser. Where Antonioni DID spend his time was largely wasted. The interminable search for Anna on the island. In real life real characters would certainly search thoroughly. But we don't have to see ALL of it. Other directors and editors have discovered ways to shorten the screen time and still give us the impression that a serious and thorough search was made. And Claudia's "running down the hall" scene ... hello? What about abandoned town of Noto scene? The deeper meaning was lost on me. If this is a part of the "new" language and "new" images everyone is talking about, well, I just don't like it. I spent 30 years in the movie biz and if I learned one thing, it's that screen time costs money. If it doesn't have a direct bearing on the plot, don't put it in. Again, if Antonioni is just breaking this rule to give us a new way at looking at movies, I don't like it.It's okay if it's not important to Antonioni as to what happens to Anna. But I feel that it is unfair for him to expect us to pay to see his movie and not tell us. We are regular folks and have a regular curiosity. But by the time this ponderous epic was finally at an end, I really didn't care either.And as to the ending, this really didn't do the women's movement any favors, did it? Like the "battered woman syndrome", she takes him back almost immediately. Bummer.I will give it another look. So many have said you need at least two viewings. Many have also said that it helps considerablu to read what critics have said in order to completely understand it. This is just wrong on so many levels. If a film can't stand on its own, it's just poorly done. I have seen many films that I have gotten more out of each time I see them, but they were always films that were worth re-watching after a first viewing. I can't say that for me this is one of them.I gave it a 6 for the cinematography.

This film is simply fantastic. Is definitely very different from what I thought it would be like. "Is actually a story about the disappearance of a girl, even that culminates in an odd romantic relationship between her boyfriend and her best friend. "*One of the very best screenplays ever written in film history. *Is an extremely well written film, with very well thought dialogs and with a very creative form of developing characters. And everyone who watched it knows the narrative is far from being conventional. I guess it must've been very groundbreaking back in 1960. Despite the film being more about the character's dramatic relationships, L'Avventura is often very funny as well. All the males of the film (mostly 40 year old men) took that very well done stare at Claudia's (Monica Vitti) legs, be her just walking on the streets or in a luxurious mansion. I also found weird that the protagonist looked so much older than her,and he wasn't attractive at all. Go figure."*Interesting from a visual standpoint.* Is also a very well shot film, I mean, really well shot, despite not being a very well lightened film, the placement of subjects, scene's profundity, the narrativity in every shot etc is very unusual and cleverly done. The final shot is a prime example: Claudia puts her hand in Sandro's back. This is the most powerful and intimal moment between both characters in the film, because is when finally Claudia understands Sandro, who fell apart and shows his angst. This scene was very oddly crafted, because we only got to see their by behind, in a wide shot, and they are not the focus of the scene. Is what I would call "subversion of filmmaking'. The film also ends in a very unconventional manner anyway, with a very abrupt cut. Which kinda fits the film overall atmosphere of indecision and weirdness. *Acting was underwhelming. *The film got a few flaws though. Besides a few goofs in the set's lights, the acting isn't the greatest thing since sliced bread. In fact, far from that. The actors ranged from decent to bad, but none of them I recall being good. Monica Vitti was certainly a stunning beauty but not very talented. *The use of music...* To finish, the use of music. It was weird. That main theme is certainly very good, and very catchy, I admit, but there were a few times, specifically in the ending, that the soundtrack became similar to one used in a psychological horror film, and added to these quiet final 15 minutes, resulted in a haunting atmosphere. Which was odd, since there wasn't really anything to justify the use of such soundtrack. Conclusion: *Is a masterpiece and definitely a must watch for anyone. *