l'Avventura (1960)

What would you do if your best friend disappeared? Search for her? Call the cops? Panic? All of the above? Sure you would. If you were a normal person, that is. But that doesn't happen in Michelangelo Antonioni's l'Avventura (The Adventure). When Anna (Lea Massari) disappears while she and her friends are exploring a tiny island near Sicily, her friends aren't exactly distraught. In fact, it's more like they're simply put out. How dare she go missing? Anna's friend Claudia (Monica Vitti) and her boyfriend Sandro (Gabriele Ferzetti) make a half-hearted search for her. They send for the police. Anna's father shows up. Even he's irritated at being called away from his important business for such a tedious matter. Soon, everyone gives up the search and goes home. And before the day is out, Sandro is putting the moves on Claudia. Anna is never found. In fact, she's quickly forgotten, as Sandro and Claudia go in search of fun and pleasure. "What?" you ask. "Can they be so thoughtless?" Well, yes, they can and they are. Claudia and Sandro check into a hotel together. Claudia is tired and wants to go to bed, preferably with Sandro. He, on the other hand, has already started to lose interest in her, and he heads downstairs to join the party that is already in progress. Come morning, Claudia comes downstairs and finds Sandro in the arms of a prostitute. She runs away. He chases her. In the final scene, Sandro sits crunched on a bench facing a stone wall, Claudia stands over him looking out to sea. You don't gotta be Freud to figure that one out.

And really, that's all there is to this movie. Someone goes missing and nobody really cares. Nothing much is done about the disappearance, and no one's especially concerned about that either. We never see, or hear from, Anna again, and no explanation is ever given for her mysterious vanishing act or her closest friends' bizarre behavior following it. Everybody just goes back to their wealthy, idle, bored lives. And in those last three words you have the entire crux of l'Avventura. Wealthy, idle people who are so utterly bored that they can't even raise an emotion when one of their own goes missing. All they can think of is finding something that they think will relieve their boredom. They don't have relationships, because those are apparently too boring; instead, they just have sex, and they try to make that suffice. They have big, empty holes inside of them where their souls are supposed to be. They spend their time grabbing anything that they think will give them pleasure and stuffing it into that empty space trying to fill it up. They might as well try to mop up the ocean with a sponge. Their boredom consumes everything they touch, like some stomach parasite that sucks all of the nutrition out of the food you eat before your body can use it. This is ennui (ahn-wee), a feeling of utter weariness and discontent that results from satiety, when everything and everyone bores you, when nothing in the world holds any interest at all, when you go through your entire life on autopilot.

Antonioni - like Fellini - picked up on the horrendous ennui and alienation that gripped Italy (and the rest of Europe) in the late fifties and early sixties, something that the US is only now having to deal with. A new upper class had emerged, professionals in their thirties and forties with lots of money and lots of time on their hands. They also had lost their moral bearings and were adrift in an endless sea of relativism and agency. They could do what they wanted and their money would protect them. But they were alienated from everything and everyone, even from themselves. They could have sex when and where and with whom they wanted, and never mind the consequences. Antonioni shows us what some of those consequences are as Claudia and Sandro struggle for something meaningful in a world where life itself has lost its meaning.

Gabrielle Ferzetti gives a strong performance as Sandro, striving for something without even knowing what it is. And Monicca Vitti became a superstar on account of her performance as Claudia, who seems to have a slightly better grasp on what's important in life. Even so, she's the one-eyed queen in Sandro's sightless world. And all of this is filmed against that stark, gritty black and white that is the hallmark of Italian cinema. The pacing is slow, deliberate, as Antonioni carefully unwraps the souls of his characters. Dialogue is sparse. This isn't a talky film; its an observational one. Claudia and Sandro are placed in one situation after another, each one fraught with enough ethical dilemmas to keep a first year philosophy class going all semester. Having lost interest in their friend's disappearance, what will the protagonists do next? Will they move on with their lives? Or will they remain trapped in the same tiresome, dead-end existence. If you aren't sure, I direct your attention back to the final image of the film. It speaks volumes without saying a single word. Therein lies Antonioni's genius.

l'Avventura is NOT RATED. While the film has no objectionable scenes, it does deal with adult situations that may not be suitable for children. On the other hand, it's doubtful that children would even sit through the 143-minute running time. You should, though. It's worth every second of it.

Le Notti Bianche (1957)

Le Notti Bianche, which translates into English as "sleepless nights," is an exquisite little movie from Luchino Visconti about two lonely people who meet, who dance the dance and part again in a strange city. I'm not an expert on Visconti's work, but I do know a good film when I see one, and this is one of my favs. Mario (Marcello Mastroianni) is new in town. He's come here for work, has no family in town, and no friends outside of work. He lives by himself in one room of a boarding house and spends his nights walking the streets, watching other people interacting with their friends and family. One night, he sees a young girl standing on a bridge, weeping. Mario approaches her, is smitten by her, introduces himself, and starts trying to court her. Natalia (Maria Schell) isn't interested in being courted though. She's in love with a man who used to rent the attic room in the building where she lives. He went away a year ago, but he promised to return. So Natalia waits for him every night on the bridge. But Mario is desperate, and he's sure he can steal Natalia from the past. So he amuses her. He distracts her. He tries to get her to fall in love with him. They go dancing. The dance turns into a wild, sexual act. Many have compared it to the party scene in Fellini's La Dolce Vita. Visconti places the dance in a public space though, and it ends in a brawl outside. In the end, Mario loses, and Natalia's love returns. Mario stands alone, and as the snow begins to fall, so do his tears.

Le Notti Bianche is a slow and deliberate movie. Those who are accustomed to faced-paced movies, full of snappy dialogue and car chases and the obligatory bedroom scene will be quite disappointed in this film. The only bedroom scenes involve Mario getting ready for work - all striped pajamas and toothpaste - and Mario sick in bed. Not very sexy, but terribly realistic. And that's one of the things I love about this movie - the way in which Visconti places the starkly realistic right alongside the utterly dreamlike. Mario is a real person, with a real personality, and with very real problems. We all understand loneliness and the desperation to find someone to belong to. Visconti gives that loneliness and desperation form in the character of Mario. You can feel the ache in him as he walks along the city street, jostled by the other people out having a good time. You can feel it in him as he struggles with whether or not to go with the prostitute - it would be so easy, a moments pleasure, the illusion of a relationship. That's something, isn't it? No, not for Mario. He wants the real thing, and he's found a girl that he thinks he can have it with. In the end, he's left with only himself and the snow and the empty city.

And speaking of the city, I love this one. It reminded me very much of The City of Lost Children - the bridges, the water, the stairs, the constant fog. This set was a work of art. I read that Visconti had the multilayered city set built on the sound stage. No CGI city here. This one is real. It has texture, brick and mortar, water and glass. You can feel the city as the camera moves through it. There's grime here, and perpetual damp. There are homeless people and rats and garbage. This is a real city, designed for the real people who will inhabit it for the space of time that it takes to watch the film. But in that space of time, I came to love this place. And against the backdrop of this gritty town, Visconti performs a love story - always a work of fantasy and imagination - using these realistic people. The result is a purely fascinating movie about the nature of love in the modern world.

Le Notti Bianche is rated G and has been restored to glorious black and white. Running time is 97 minutes.

Enchanted April (1992)

Mike Newell's Enchanted April, adapted from the novel by Elizabeth von Arnim, is one of those rare gems of a movie that come along every now and then and sail right under the radar. I'm always amazed at how many people have never heard of this film. Everything about this movie is perfect, from the cast to the stunning scenery that forms the backdrop of the the action. The only complaint I ever had with this film was that it took so long to bring it out on DVD. The movie originally came out in '92, but it wasn't released on DVD until just last year.

The story starts on a rainy London day in the years right after WWI. Two women, Lottie Wilkins (Josie Lawrence) and Rose Arbuthnot (Miranda Richardson) are fed up with the day to day humdrum of their middle-class lives and decide to spend April in an Italian villa, which they rent from George Briggs (Michael Kitchen). Because they don't have a lot of money, they advertise for two companions to join them and share the expense. Their ad is answered by Mrs. Fisher (Joan Plowright), and aging dowager, and Lady Caroline Dester (Polly Walker), a disillusioned young socialite. Lottie's husband Mellersh (Alfred Molina) - a family lawyer - is outraged that his wife would want to go on a vacation without him; Rose's husband Frederick (Jim Broadbent) - a writer of scandalous romances - thinks it's a great idea. Once the four women arrive at San Salvatore, the villa begins to work its magic upon them. You see them unfold beneath the hot Mediterranean sun, melt into the exquisite landscape. Their guards come down. So do their pretenses and facades. Lottie invites Mellersh to come and join her. She knows that the villa will change him too. It does. Then Rose invites Frederick. He arrives - having not received her letter - looking for Caroline, who he has a passion for. The villa's magic takes care of that as well. By the end, all are friends, including Mr. Briggs who came to see how things were going and was invited to stay on.

Enchanted April is not a loud or a fast paced movie. There aren't any chase scenes or gun fights or explosions in it. There are no CGI effects to wow the audience. You won't see any nudity or sex or even hear any profanity. What you will get, instead, is a truly wonderful story - one could say magical - set against some of the most enchanting scenery in the whole world. The musical score is lovely and relaxing, and the cinematography takes full advantage of the breathtaking Italian coast. Some would call Enchanted April a chick-flick. I disagree. It is a movie for anyone who is tired of rushing around and multi-tasking and just wants to enjoy a film that unfolds itself gradually, carefully, until it arrives at a totally satisfying conclusion.

Enchanted April is rated PG.