Finding that these days movies like this "L'AVVENTURA" no longer have space in the movie market is as bleak as the landscapes and souls of the characters of most of Antonioni's films. It is with sadness that I notice that almost nobody is interested in filmmakers like Antonioni, De Sica, Godard, Truffaut, Rossellini, Chabrol, Bunuel, Malle, among others who offered us fantastic and creative works that reinvented cinema and influenced following generations of great filmmakers. It is with sadness that I observe that nowadays there would be no space for filmmakers like these, the sensitivity of seeing or perceiving films with non-linear narratives, which are not very straightforward and well-explained or all interpretations, according to the understandings, experiences and sensibilities of each one. I just saw the film and, like all the movies I've seen from Antonioni (eight so far), I'm still at the stage of "absorbing" what I just saw. As always, the usual "brands" and director's style are present in this excellent film: desolate and isolated scenarios brilliantly filmed, few dialogues and long sequences without dialogues, few "happenings" during the film, slow development of "action" difficulties of communication between solitary, complex and contradictory characters, existentialist issues, etc. In short, when we see the films of Antonioni it seems that we are always watching the same film and this also does not escape this "rule". This phrase is not in the pejorative sense, on the contrary, there are other excellent achievers in which this also happens, which only shows their ability to basically explore the same themes, but in an always different way and that provide us with immense pleasure, that stimulate us and make us think.

This movie is a masterpiece, certainly, but as admirable as it is for its technical mastery and genre inversion, it somehow fails to entertain. This should not discourage anyone from watching it, they should simply know what they are getting into from the outset. More than anything, this is an experiment of film: testing new possibilities for the medium (a trend that Antonioni would follow in the next two installments in this trilogy, La Notte and L'Eclisse) and new methods of emotional manipulation. The first thing to notice is the camera- work and direction style. It is a truly beautiful film, jumping from extreme close-ups characterized by frenetic movement to wide overhead shots of an island or city in which one or two distant figures can be viewed etching out their paths like ants in the sand. It often distracts from the underlying story, especially in the later parts of the movie when the story itself has almost seemed to vanish along with the missing girl who acts as the focal point of the film, if it can be said to have one. The story itself offers some severe challenges to the audience. The first thirty minutes are devoted to establishing the mystery involved in the disappearance of Anna, the best friend of one of the film's protagonists and lover of the second. In a departure from the traditions of the genre, however, this mystery does not lead to a criminal conspiracy or hard-boiled investigation, but is instead followed by a series of the most mundane events imaginable. This is not to say that the lives of the two protagonists do not turn upside down, merely that this upheaval is internal rather than dependent upon external circumstances. As their half-hearted attempts to locate Anna lead them nowhere, Claudia and Sandro find themselves committing a more profound betrayal than if they had abandoned Anna to die outright: moving on with their lives. Rather than serving as the primary driver of the film, the mystery is covered up like an untreated wound festering just beneath the surface and infecting everything around it. Eventually the two characters reach a point in which the reappearance of Anna would no longer be the solution to a problem, but would in fact be the culmination of one. The final scene is striking in its ambiguity. Are we witnessing redemption, or the final stages of the fall from grace? Even the music seems to be unable to decide.

Are people as weird in foreign countries as the movies that are made in those countries? If so, I am sure glad I live in America. "L'Avventura" would still have been a weird foreign film even if it had been shorter, but at least it would have been a better movie because there would have been less of it.A bunch of people get on a boat and end up on a small volcanic island. After they walk around for a while, they decide to leave and discover that Anna is missing. They search everywhere, but she is gone. There is only one possibility: she drowned and her body drifted out to sea with the tide. Of course, we can still wonder if it was an accident, suicide, or murder. But one thing is certain: she didn't just vanish into thin air.Wait a minute! What am I saying? This is a weird foreign film by Michelangelo Antonioni. When you enter the theater to watch one of these movies, you have to check your reason and common sense at the door, or it will just get in the way of experiencing existential wonder, if that's what you're into. So, of course she might just have vanished into thin air or teleported off the island or was abducted by aliens or whatever.In any event, Anna's friend, Claudia, and Anna's boyfriend, Sandro, don't have much reason and common sense either, because they leave the island and start looking for Anna. I mean, they actually think she might be wandering around Italy, visiting museums, staying at a hotel, or anything that someone might do who wasn't last seen on a small island with no way off except by boat.They recognize that she might have drowned, but that doesn't stop them from knocking off a quick piece, because though they just met, yet they are wildly in love with each other and just have to have some right in the middle of an open field. Of course, that doesn't stop Sandro from knocking off a quick piece the next day with some woman on the couch in the hotel lobby. When Claudia catches him, he cries. He shed not one tear for Anna, but this is different. No problem, because Claudia still loves him.And Anna? You mean you're still wondering what happened to her? What do you think this is, an American movie?

Michelangelo Antoniony has made it almost a trademark of his, though this might be the very first time he's using it. We have a mystery on our hands, but the director doesn't care at all. He's not interested in solving this mystery but rather in seeing the impact it has over the people involved. Moreover, about one third of the film passes and even the characters inside the film lose interest in solving this mystery. The result is a slow plot less observation with superb aesthetic control, at a bunch of people whose characters are in fact all the interest of the movie. And it's one of the best characters' observation I've ever seen on film. It slowly strips the leads (and in fact everybody else seen on screen) bare down to their smallest weakness. The more you see the more you learn about them, that's what the whole thing is about - if you want to see a mystery choose another film.