In this challenging drama by Michelangelo Antonioni, his characteristic long, significant periods of silence punctuate the message that people just cannot seem to communicate with each other. Capping off Antonioni's previous two films (L'avventura and La Notte) in much the same style, this tale involves a woman, Vittoria (Monica Vitti), who has just suffered the break-up of an imperfect relationship with a staunch intellectual (Francisco Rabal). Piero (Alain Delon), a stockbroker, casts his
romantic gaze in Vittoria's direction and the woman gradually relents and they begin a tentative affair. There is much to appreciate in this man who is not overly intellectual and is blessedly free of complications, and the same can be said of Vittoria. Yet their innermost fears play upon both of them in ways that go against an honest expression of their love -- and against a lasting relationship. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
All there is to the drama -- a prolonged detailed illustration of the moody surrender of the woman to a rare and elusive love. This takes, for its full illumination, a few minutes over two hours.
...sit back, suppress the subtitles so they don't distract you from the images and let the 125-minute movie suspend and substitute your consciousness like the moon passing in front the sun.
The conclusion of Michelangelo Antonioni's loose trilogy (preceded by L'Avventura and La Notte), this 1961 film is conceivably the best in Antonioni's career, but significantly it has the least consequential plot.
Vitti's elegant languor is contrasted with the cacophony of the Rome stock exchange, which is the director's metaphor for the madness of unrestrained capitalism.
One watches -- and, perhaps more importantly, hears -- the modern world through his rendering of emotion, architecture, chaos, boredom, silence, and incommunicability.
Anyone disenchanted with the vacuity of later Antonioni will find the seeds of their dissatisfaction well-rooted in the mannerism and facile anguish evident here.
Because Antonioni shoots characters and places in ways that make them look unfamiliar, the impact makes the slow pacing and lack of clarity not just endurable, but ecstatic.
while one feels the passion that Antonioni puts into his movies, one also gets the slightest sense of a wish that he'd go ahead and grow up a little already
It's useless to try to describe it. You just have to watch it. A classic of Italian cinema, about mediocrity, and being lost, and meaninglessness."Siamo in media". We're in the middle.
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