Object #72 - Island - L'Avventura (1960)

Dir. Michelangelo Antonioni 

"No one man is an island" - John Donne

L'Avventura is a film about absence. The plot, such that it is, centralises on the unexplained absence of Anna (Lea Massari). She, introduced in filmic terms as our protagonist, abandons this role less than 30 minutes into the film's duration. Anna, her lover Sandro (Gabriele Ferzetti), and friend Claudia (Monica Vitti) holiday on a yacht with other couples. Anna is impatient with sunbathing, with reading, with dilly-dallying in selecting a place to swim, and so she dives off the moving yacht, shortly followed by Sandro, doing his part as lover. Anna is a woman yearning for something, but she doesn't know what, a sentiment shared by nearly everyone on the trip.

What Antonioni does however, like Hitchcock with Psycho, is to subvert the expectations of character arc and plot, abandoning the most-driven character in the most literal way. As the holiday-goers explore a rocky, desolate island, Anna disappears. We, like them, are unaware of the specifics of this absence. Has she drowned? Is she hiding? Has she surreptitiously absconded? No, she has simply disappeared, and what Antonioni makes clear with the remainder of the film, is that the absence of something can be more interesting than its presence.

The absence is most strongly telegraphed, and felt, early in the film, on the island itself. Aldo Scavarda's cinematography, throughout the film but most importantly here, frames the living people against larger, often older objects like churches, towns, and rock-faces. On the island, Sandro and Claudia in particular are framed against the blank, monochromatic sea, oftentimes peppered with distant smaller, rocky islands. Each of us is an island, alone in our thoughts, within our bodies, and within our souls, and it is this feeling which is strongly evoked here. 

The relationship of Claudia and Sandro will grow from this absence, as each struggle with escaping their respective smothering feelings of ennui. This emotion is literalized by the absence of Anna, with her disappearance allowing Claudia and Sandro to explore the feelings they have for one another. Unexpectedly for some viewers at the time, it is not plot which is instigated by Anna's absence, but this budding relationship. However, the relationship which blooms is not truly passionate, being more personal outpourings of a craving for something more, an escape from ennui no matter the source, and no matter the person. 

After leaving the island, the two meet, and use the pretence of following up on a possible sighting of Anna to continue their relationship. They visit a village outside Noto, abandoned, and vacuous, with a church clearly not providing service/mass to any local inhabitants. Again, absence is externalised here with the village, and as a location, it provides the formation of Claudia and Sandro's relationship, as they take a break nearby, and make love. Critic and filmmaker Olivier Assayas notes that here the controlled, classical camerawork present in the majority of the film becomes absent; a static shot of the two leaving the village (and the shot) by reversing their car becomes a slow movement of the camera inwards, towards the church, almost as if the ghost of Anna follows them, and is manifest within a place as absent as she. The car itself echoes this as we only hear, not see, it leave.

This village, to me, bares similarity to the artworks of Giorgio de Chirico, themselves often dominated by empty, low-lit villages and ancient buildings. In his artwork, objects take on character by their associations and location, often separated by impossible shadows, and blank spaces. Just so, Claudia and Sandro, as the objects of interest of this film, are defined by their relationships in relation to absent spaces, absent people, and their absent souls. Later in the film, Sandro spends time in a more populated village, wishing to visit a locked museum. He sees the opening-times sign, which indicates that it should be open, but as he knocks the door, he hears an echo, and remarks on the emptiness. He asks a local, remarking that this is a poor welcome for tourists. The local, friendly at first, suggest that they as a village do not want the presence of tourists. 

Sandro, rebuffed, walks away and sees an unfinished ink-drawing of a local building. Dangling his keys, he absentmindedly but purposefully knocks the ink over, staining the paper. The local artist, previously unseen by Sandro comes over and has a brief conflict with him, to which Sandro condescendingly insults his age. To me, this is one of the most telling moments of the film. No matter how much we are made to empathise with the ennui of both Claudia and Sandro, the dominating absence of care that they are steeped in will always be expressed this way. Here, the absent-minded ruining of a half-finished drawing, and broadly, in their lack of care for the absence of Anna. Claudia is certainly more torn-up by the fast feelings she has for Sandro, but even she is happy to ignore their search for Anna, as she and Sandro enjoy each other in her stead. 

The film climaxes with the aftermath of Claudia finding Sandro post-coitus with an attractive woman (Dorothy de Poliolo) met at a party. Sandro again, like a drowning man in a rough sea, lashes out for instant gratification. Claudia, her trust in Sandro broken, runs away, viewing the sunrise. Sandro, instantly remorseful, follows her, sits at a bench, and cries in self-pity. Claudia however, places her hand on the back of his head, comforting him, as the film ends with the two of them framed against the sunrise of a new dawn, a new opportunity to find their souls. This shot parallels an earlier shot from the island, as Claudia witnessed the sunrise from a hut on the island. There, she was alone, entrenched in the her own absence of meaning, and the sudden absence of Anna; whereas now, she and Sandro view the sunrise together, in a populated town. They are now framed with the sea, rather than against it, as they have joined Anna in finding some deeper meaning beyond passionless existence.

Earlier in the film, the two visited a church rooftop. Here, as a Nun leaves them, as always, alone, they discuss their goals in life. Sandro asks Claudia to marry him, to which she quite rightly says no. She accidentally pulls a rope, ringing one of the church bells, and the two ring the bells to hear another church respond to the call. To me, this encapsulates the theme of the film, and the church bells could easily be the chosen-object for this post. The ringing of the church bell is welcomed by another unseen human, who rings their church bell in response. This can only be done apart. Each of us in our own islands, ringing bells in the hopes that out of the silence, someone else rings back and says: "Don't worry, I'm here". 

But to claw your way out of ennui, as expressed by the film's ending, it to go beyond a simple connection. We see superficial connections throughout: the early beginnings of Claudia and Sandro; Claudia's friend Giulia (Dominique Blanchar), who flirts and kisses a teenage Prince (Giovanni Petrucci) in front of her husband; the men leering at Claudia; and of course, with Sandro and the prostitute. Despite their relationship literally being borne from absence, Claudia and Sandro can now form something new, something which has already shown struggle, but it is from such absence that they will thrive and live with renewed passion. No one man is an island, and that is the core of L'Avventura.