| Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Avventura (1960), was a film of mysterious disappearance, betrayal mixed with grief and comforting. His 1961 follow up also covers similar terrain by following a married couple through the day and the night that they finally realized that their love was sour. | Marcello Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau as the doomed couple are of course superb, he perhaps will always be loved for his role in La Dolce Vita but here he is subtly brooding and Moreau is exotic and sophisticated looks and excels with immaculate timing and perfectly framed emotions. Ultimately Antonioni’s world: cold, brutal, lonely and full of ennui; a modernist world of estrangement where the old codes of civilization and behavior no longer have a place is a truly breathtaking experience. |
