- As confounding as it is beautiful, Michelangelo Antonioni's L'Avventura lends some truth to the old nugget that "it's the journey, not the destination." The journey in this case begins in the Aeolian Islands near Sicily, where Anna (Lea Massari) and her boyfriend Sandro (Gabriele Ferzetti) embark on a pleasure cruise with Anna's friend Claudia (Monica Vitti) and two other couples (Dominique Blanchar, James Addams, Dorothy de Poliolo, Lelio Luttazzi). Along the way, Anna initiates some relationship drama with Sandro and even fabricates a story about a shark just to garner attention. After the group spends a few hours on an isolated rocky island, Anna vanishes without a trace.
- But before I address Anna's disappearance, let's talk about these characters for a moment. Anna, Sandro, Claudia and the others clearly belong to the ennui-infused Italian leisure class for whom life is never as enjoyable as their wealth suggests it should be. Anna's early encounter with Sandro features a strangely passionless love scene, and the entire group conspicuously avoids having fun on a beautiful Mediterranean cruise. Their conversations consist largely of banal proclamations and ironic reflections on life. When Anna vanishes, it's practically redundant -- these people are barely there in the first place. If anything, Anna's disappearance temporarily grants the others a modicum of meaning in their lives as they desperately start searching for her.
- Incidentally, we never find out what happened to Anna. One minute she's there, and the next she's gone. Anna's father (Renzo Ricci) half-heartedly rules out suicide, and her friends debate whether or not they heard a boat go by when she vanished. Everyone secretly suspects Sandro of foul play, although nobody comes out and says it. Of course, Sandro doesn't exactly help his case when he starts hanging all over Claudia. Clearly, he is attracted to her, and Claudia hesitantly begins to reciprocate. As the two of them take train trips through the charming Sicilian countryside, nominally to search for clues to Anna's disappearance, they grow closer together. At some point, the mystery of Anna's disappearance begins to seem less urgent than the burgeoning new relationship between Claudia and Sandro, however short-lived it may prove to be.
- Having seen Blow-Up, I was at least prepared for the possibility that we wouldn't find out precisely what happened to Anna, although admittedly I didn't expect the investigation to get derailed as fully as it did. This has to be one of the earliest films to completely thumb its nose at the expectation that mysteries always get solved, and it is to be commended for this bold choice. Otherwise, the film's major virtues are its portrayal of the sad, pitiable lives of the rich and famous and its magnificent background scenery, captured in beautiful black and white tones by cinematographer Aldo Scavarda. Honestly, the film's images of strangely imposing rock islands, obscure Sicilian towns, and ancient church towers are so captivating that I find myself strangely compelled to tour the Italian coast someday. Of course, I'm substantially less wealthy than the characters in the film, so I probably can't afford to go and certainly wouldn't expect to disappear if I did.
