Monday 24 September 2012

Antonioni and his trilogy on modernity and its discontents

Michelangelo Antonioni, like his contemporary, Frederico Fellini, began his film career making neorealist Italian films. Both directors moved to a new form of film making in the 1960s focusing on the modern life of upper middle class Italians. These films focused on their languid, weary sense of ennui and alienation. Antonioni has been praised as a director who "redefined the concept of narrative cinema." His characteristic long shots, and his rejection of realism, traditional plot structure and drama all work towards films which invoke contemplation and emotion through design and set. This removal of emotional connection with the characters, combined with the jarring of traditional expectations of narrative further enforce the themes of social alienation and disconnectedness.

The trilogy of films comprising L'avventura (1960), La Notte (1961) and L'eclisse (1962) encapsulate a modern weariness, a strong sense of alienation and disconnection, and a phlegmatic dispassion. The first in the trilogy was booed at Cannes 1960, but upon a second screening, it won the Jury Prize. The plot is not typical: rich people arrive by yacht at a small island off the Amalfi coast. A girl goes missing after telling her boyfriend she wants to be alone. When it comes time to leave, the girl Anna is not found. A night long search follows, and she is still not found. She is never found, and this tension is never resolved in the film.

The film focuses on the characters and their discontented lives and relationships. The theme running through the trilogy of films is a strong sense of ennui associated with upper middle class Italian life. The characters only interact emotionally with each other through sex, flirtation or competitiveness. Real intimacy is rarely seen. Antonioni is observing the discontents of modernity in society, the inability for people to connect and the banality of middle class existence. This trilogy is poignant and interesting in terms of its character development, and exploration of themes. These are brilliantly shot films, with Antonioni's symbolic and often claustrophobic attention to detail. I really love how Antonioni creates this wonderful languidness and characters with no destination in mind, just indulgence and yet a searching for meaning or maybe just mere entertainment.


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