A group of well-healed friends head out on a sailing trip to a isolated volcanic island in the Mediterranean. When time comes to return to the yacht the group discover that Anna (the film's focus up to this point) is missing. Sandro (Anna's flame) and Claudia (her close friend) try without success to find her. While the rest of the group return to the mainland Sandro and Claudia remain on the island to assist the Coast Guard in locating Anna. After some days with no sign of her the pair decide to search back in Italy. During the time spent searching Claudia and... Sandro begin to become attracted to one another and in due course they become lovers - all but forgetting about the still missing Anna. [show more]
Having established his unconventional narrative style with 'Chronicle Of A Love' (1950), 'Camille Without Camellias' (1953) and 'The Girlfriends' (1955), Italian auteur Michelangelo Antonioni began work on the first of his 'Incommunicability Trilogy' all of which starred the glamorous, and immensely talented Monica Vitti. 'L'Avventura' ('The Adventure') is, in the loosest possible sense, a story about young bourgeois couple Sandro (Gabriele Ferzetti) & Anna (Lea Massari), Anna's best friend Claudia (Vitti) and a Mediterranean boating trip during which Anna mysteriously disappears. Claudia & Sandro's "search" is somewhat of a misnomer; as it merely serves as a pretext for Sandro's amorous advances towards his fiancé's friend; Claudia reciprocates his attention whilst poor Anna, both fiancé and friend, is soon forgotten. Antonioni's films on loneliness & isolation are, unsurprisingly, best seen alone; like a painting in an empty corner of an art gallery, films like 'L'Avventura' offer the viewer an experience unlike any other. They exist, seemingly without purpose, and in doing so reflect a society unable, or unwilling, to determine its own sense of direction; this was as important an issue for Italians after World War II, as it is for us today. Back then, people questioned their judgement in allowing fascism to gain a foothold and, of course, pondered over the very real post-war concern about how other Rothschild created ideologies (manifested through militarised nation-state superpowers) would soon threaten to infringe upon civil liberties once more. Modernity, capitalism and industrialisation also make their debut as an uninvited triumvirate that marauds its way through the psychical landscape whilst stamping its superficial, treacherous creed upon the soul of humanity. Anna represents something lost within us, as 'L'Avventura' chases beauty, and searches for lost values like one asleep and dreaming; trying not to wake up, but knowing all too well the reality that awaits them when they do. Critics roundly mocked this film at Cannes, perhaps unaware of their own allegiance to the empty, materialist ideologies that Antonioni saw as a threat. But just like Claudia rethinks her relationship with Sandro, it was soon reappraised and hailed as an unparalleled work of cinematic genius, now, almost half a century later; we must concede that Antonioni was right, and 'L'Avventura' was a unique, beautiful warning: unheeded, denied, lost and rediscovered. Total Cinema.
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Michelangelo Antonioni directs and co-writes this award-winning Italian drama starring Gabriele Ferzetti, Monica Vitti and Lea Massari. When a couple, Sandro and Anna (Ferzetti and Massari), embark on a cruise with their friend Claudia (Vitti), all is well until Anna goes missing. As Sandro and Claudia try to look for her, they develop an attraction towards each other and quickly forget about their missing friend.
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