elvircorhodzic L'AVVENTURA is a mysterious drama about human alienation and emotional emptiness. Mr. Antonioni has, through an unusual narrative structure and a very slow pace, skilfully hid a secret.Two young women, Anna and Claudia, travel from a suburb of Rome on a yachting cruise in the Mediterranean. Anna's lover, Sandro, has joined them in Rome. She is not sure about her feelings in him. He drives the two women to the coast where they join two wealthy couples. The next morning, they sail around small islands north of Sicily. Anna is visibly nervous. She confesses to Claudia a vicious game with her lover. At one of the smaller islands the party comes ashore. Anna and Sandro go off alone and talk about their relationship. After a frivolous discussion she is gone without a trace. They explore the island and find nothing. Shortly after that, Sandro and Claudia develop an attraction for each other...The holes in the story, which are very visible, have further intensified a mystery. Scenery is very impressive. Rich people, which are emotionally and mentally empty, were faced with a strange accident and intensive romance. A meaningless life is unpredictable. It is a small prank by Mr. Antonioni. He pays no attention to the small details. A sensational event has caused certain immoral situation. Love was born out of nothing. The protagonists would like "something", but are not capable of anything. They are lonely and they seek for help.The tension at the beginning of the film was replaced with anxiety. The characterization is excellent.Gabriele Ferzetti as Sandro is an energetic and impulsive, but boring and bitter character. A lover with immoral code and limited understandings. It's hard to sympathize with a guy like him. Monica Vitti as Claudia is a coquettish young woman. The blame for grabbing lover and fear of an unrequited love are mixed in her character. Lea Massari as Anna is a vain wealthy girl. She does not want anyone's love, more attention. Eventually, she has received a desired attention.Mr. Antonioni, through a weird adventure, has managed to fit an anxious mood and nonsense in a recognizable life mosaic.

ferrell Wow! Okay. Wow! If I had been in the audience at the first showing in Cannes, I would have felt I was amongst kindred souls.Great reputations don't impress me. I have to see it myself. I have given it the benefit of the doubt by bothering to read several of the comments here. I'm glad there are those of you that got something special out of this film. A good editor with a sharp knife could have improved this film considerably. Even that would still not be enough for me.Certainly the cinematography was beautiful. I just returned from a trip to Sicily and that was the initial motivations for viewing this film. It turns out that even that was not enough for me.I don't mind that Antonioni's motivation for doing the film was to explore the delicacy of human relations. I do mind that he disguised his purpose for so long. Okay, I get it that Anna brings it on herself to encourage Sandro's wandering eye. But Claudia's motivation is a mystery to me. Antonioni spends too little time motivating Claudia. Even the kiss on he boat is not nearly enough. Sandro didn't appear to be THAT good a kisser. Where Antonioni DID spend his time was largely wasted. The interminable search for Anna on the island. In real life real characters would certainly search thoroughly. But we don't have to see ALL of it. Other directors and editors have discovered ways to shorten the screen time and still give us the impression that a serious and thorough search was made. And Claudia's "running down the hall" scene ... hello? What about abandoned town of Noto scene? The deeper meaning was lost on me. If this is a part of the "new" language and "new" images everyone is talking about, well, I just don't like it. I spent 30 years in the movie biz and if I learned one thing, it's that screen time costs money. If it doesn't have a direct bearing on the plot, don't put it in. Again, if Antonioni is just breaking this rule to give us a new way at looking at movies, I don't like it.It's okay if it's not important to Antonioni as to what happens to Anna. But I feel that it is unfair for him to expect us to pay to see his movie and not tell us. We are regular folks and have a regular curiosity. But by the time this ponderous epic was finally at an end, I really didn't care either.And as to the ending, this really didn't do the women's movement any favors, did it? Like the "battered woman syndrome", she takes him back almost immediately. Bummer.I will give it another look. So many have said you need at least two viewings. Many have also said that it helps considerablu to read what critics have said in order to completely understand it. This is just wrong on so many levels. If a film can't stand on its own, it's just poorly done. I have seen many films that I have gotten more out of each time I see them, but they were always films that were worth re-watching after a first viewing. I can't say that for me this is one of them.I gave it a 6 for the cinematography.

cmccann-2 When L'avventura premiered at Cannes in 1960, it polarized audiences and immediately established director Michelangelo Antonioni as an exciting new force on the art-house circuit. The film concerns the disappearance of the character Anna during a Mediterranean boating trip, and the subsequent romance of her fiancée Sandro and best friend Claudia. Though initially L'avventura appears to be a mystery, the lack of resolve regarding Anna's disappearance makes the film function more as an art- house drama about the existential ennui of the leisure class. Though certain scenes drag on, the film as a whole holds up well and lives up to its stature as one of the key texts of 1950s/60s European art-house cinema.When a group of upper-class friends go on vacation in the Mediterranean, a young woman named Anna (Lea Masari) disappears during a stop at an island. Anna's husband-to-be Sandro (Gabriel Ferzetti) and close friend Claudia (Monica Vitti) subsequently lead a search initiative and become lovers. Like a shark attack Anna fakes before her disappearance, Sandro and Claudia's affair is merely performed as a means to escape the ennui of their luxurious lives, to rekindle a lost feeling of excitement. The film ends with Claudia catching Sandro with another woman; their "adventure" over, the characters are left to continue their monotonous existence.The pacing can be slow, and many scenes linger on for extended periods of time, becoming longueurs which test the viewer's patience. However, both the acting and script-writing are well-executed in that they come across seamless and never pop out at you in a cringe-worthy way. The film's greatest strength lies in the camera-work of Antonioni and cinematographer Aldo Scavanda. There's a painterly level of composition to many of the shots, for example the way Antonioni's camera pans right to a rule of thirds shot of the search party cross-armed against the island backdrop, upset at not having found Anna - Antonioni is very good at conveying narrative on a purely visual level.In summary, L'avventura is an important text in 60's art-house cinema and still worth revisiting for modern movie goers. From the 70's movie brats to Sofia Coppola, directors attempting to tell stories of wide-screen alienation have drawn heavily from Antonioni, and this is probably one of the director's most famous films. It may at times be tedious, but one can't deny its artistry and the driving truth of its themes, nor its role in influencing a generation of filmmakers.8/10

Ayal Oren 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.