I went into this one expecting the cinematic equivalent of cod liver oil, an experience to be endured rather than enjoyed.
But I should know myself better. This happens all the time: I go into one of these vaguely New Wave movies expecting a willfully obscure nightmare, and then I end up loving it. L'Avventura may very well end up being one of my all-time faves.
This is a movie about surfaces, our obsession with them and the way we play with them. This is elegantly reflected in the film's striking, modernist look: the shallow depth of frame and the abstract angles heighten the feelings of tense, desperate flatness.
According to Zizek, there's such a thing as a cinematic "big Other:" someone who fulfills the necessary, but seemingly accidental, function of maintaining the status quo. He uses the nun at the end of Vertigo as a typical example: if she doesn't show up, startling Kim Novak and causing her to fall to her death, then Jimmy Stewart has to be reconciled to his relationship with this real live, complicated woman. And that's a potentially revolutionary possibility -- one that's got to be nipped in the bud. Enter the nun, or the 'big Other."
That's why the character of Claudia (played by the lustrous, heartbreaking Monica Vitti) is so interesting. All throughout the movie, people are trying to get her to be their "big Other;" they drag her along into their own bad behavior, wanting her to be a witness to how naughty they are, and possibly to stop them. This leaves her bewildered and conflicted, because she's feeling in need of a "big Other" herself: She wants someone else to step in and stop her from stealing her missing friend's boyfriend.
So in addition to being a story about surfaces, it's also about what happens when you find out no one is watching to stop the bad behavior you want to commit but not be held accountable. This is one of the hardest, most painful lessons of adulthood. Which is why I don't buy the oft-trotted-out statement that there are no sympathetic characters in this film. Immature, unpleasant, yes --- but imminently relatable. Vitti's performance is particularly magnificent; there's something awesome and beautiful about watching her go supernova crazy, trapped by the shallow depth of field, rolling in turmoil among the sheets.
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