Original subtitles

When you think of L'Avventura,

it seems obvious or simple,

but at the same time, it's a moment

that, from every point of view,

is almost historically a turning point in the evolution of film.

It's an aesthetic act, I suppose,

even political, in a certain manner.

I think if has consequences

whose effects continue, especially on the cinema fo follow.

When Antonioni made L ‘Awventura,

he'd already made films that were extremely —

where that modernity is at work,

but never in such a radical way as in L'Awentura.

I think that what was shocking in L Aventura, what was striking,

was this powerful blow,

the powerful blow of the literal disappearance of meaning.

You can see L'Awentura...

as a documentary on the loss of meaning.

To speak of the scene of Anna's disappearance —

Because we're used fo conventional film plofs,

we concenltrated on the character of Anna...

because she had been designated in the beginning

as the bearer of the story's, of the drama's, meaning.

We've followed Anna from the start.

She's a young woman from the ltalian upper class.

We're in the south of Italy,

yet all this is slightly undermined by a sort of vague tension.

Anna has already done something quite mysterious,

but which seems completely harmless.

She tried to —

Well, she succeeded, actually, in diving into the sea.

Anna.

Careful!

Why did she do it?

It's nof very clear, especially since the boat was moving,

and everyone had agreed it wasn't a nice place fo swim,

but she did it anyway.

And you could say if causes them fo stop on that island,

where, after all, strange things will happen.

The strangest thing is what we just witnessed,

or, in fact, what's interesting is that we did nof witness it,

Sandro!

Where's Anna?

She was here.

- Isn't she onboard? - I don't know, miss.

Then suddenly, this plot literally dissolves,

and that, after something like,

say, thirty minutes of film,

we're literally at the starting point of the film.

By that I mean that we're walching these characters,

who are individuals

whose identifies we don't know.

We're not clear on the story, nor the past, nor the present.

You could say that there's a clear “break” with a conventional plof,

in the sense that nothing allows us to latch onto something.

On the contrary, there's a brutal act of saying,

“No. There's nothing fo latch onto.”

By that I mean that Anna has literally disappeared,

and now what?

Because Anna carried the story.

Where is the story?

What will take shape as a possible story?

And is a story even possible?

The manner of saying that Anna does not reappear is a manner of saying,

“No, conventional dramaturgy no longer interests me.

What interests me is exactly the opposite,

the disappearance of conventional dramaturgy.”

Suddenly, we're obliged, as the film's viewers,

fo ask again the question...

of exactly where we are, what is our perspective.

Will, suddenly, lacking a story,

these characters strangely become more interesting?

Are we forced fo build it by ourselves, using these images

where everyone seems fo be looking for something

and so, with them,

we start progressively fo realize that it's irremediably lost?

That not only will if not refurn

but that we literally see being born inside them

the issue of what will replace the presence of meaning.

But during the long scene of the disappearance,

we have the feeling that Antonioni has only one idea...

as if he were aware of the importance of doing that scene,

as if, in a certain way, cinema itself needed that scene to exist,

this thing to be affirmed,

for it to be emphasized and the point driven home

in such a way that it couldn't be glossed over,

that we couldn't pretend it never happened.

Truly, it's necessary to go all out to portray that story,

and it's necessary, most of all,

and that is what will be deployed in the continuation of the story,

that never again will the character of Anna reappear.

It's the issue of the ‘empty center,” which is that of modernity.

Did you find her?

It's like a folally blank page

with this sort of, once again, barren desert,

with a natural environment

which becomes progressively, not cruelly hostile, but a bit more hostile.

After her disappearance, the weather doesn't improve.

But, at the same fime,

the absolutely abstract and emply aspect of this place

allows it fo be reduced fo the bare essence of what's happening,

meaning that there's no more story, no nothing.

There are no more film sels,

no more horizon, no direction in which fo head,

Just this sort of nothingness.

So this is why,

we're in a situation which rather strongly evokes things

which doubtlessly influenced Anfonioni, or, in any case, marked him,

because jt was really the aesthetic of the time

what we call the Theater of the Absurd.

We could speak of Beckett, or speak of Adamov, or others, more minor,

but it's something that is truly linked fo the theafer of the time,

without mentioning someone who was essential in lfaly in that context,

Pirandello.

We could very well say that what we see on this island at that moment

are characters in search of meaning.

They are characters without a goal,

seeking something that escapes them.

It's very metaphysical in the sense of the existentialism of those years.

We could say that this question has been addressed by the other arts,

long before cinema,

whether it be literature or the visual arts.

This whole question of literality,

of representation,

is something that was considerably shaken up by the other arts,

but the fact is, in cinema, this is when it occurs.

This is when if occurs.

And why is it particularly striking and historical in Anfonioni's film?

Because Anfonioni's film is a film that is made

not on the outskirts, not as part of a radical underground,

but that is made at the heart of the cinema industry.

Once again, destined just like any other film for as wide an audience as possible,

coming from a director who, up until then,

had, after all, ‘played the game,”

‘played by the rules,”

here, you can say that it's the founding act

of what Anfonioni's cinema will become.

Did you see?

A viewer of L'Avventura af the fime,

when seeing L'Avventura for the first time,

was as confused and uncomfortable

as, admittedly, the same viewer faced with if foday.

What's fascinating in L'Avventura, and strictly unacceptable at the time,

is related fo the fact that progressively if becomes.

We'll only ‘prefend” fo investigate her disappearance

when, in fact, we realize we don't give a damn, if doesn't inferest us,

and that it hasn't the slightest imporiance if she reappears or not.

We're a bit like the characters, who finally say,

“Actually, it'd be inconvenient if she did reappear.”

Annal

In short, we're interested in something completely different than Anna,

but the way in which this ‘completely different” appears within us

is thal we have also advanced in order fo go fowards this story, this narrative,

and we almost “build” this story with the characters,

since, like them, we have fofal freedom within the space of the film.

Because of this, our altachment fo these characters and what happens between them

is much greater than our interest in the story of Anna,

a character who isn't all that fascinating.

In this scene...

Sandro and Claudia just met up.

You could literally say that it's the key event of the film,

that, in a certain way, we've finally reached the heart of what if was moving fowards.

Tell Lady Patrizia we're continuing our search,

and that Miss Claudia will get in touch in one way or another.

- Certainly. - Thank you.

That is fo say, that Claudia has literally replaced Anna.

We saw this via the exchange of the shirt on the boat in a symbolic manner,

but, in any case, progressively, there was a sort of hand-off

where actually Claudia became Anna.

Here, we're truly, in terms of dramaturgy, seeing something really interesting.

It's a sort of strategy which takes shape around the fact

that they continue to pretend to be interested in the search for Anna,

to pretend, all of them, to take interest in the search for Anna,

when, in fact, it's obvious to everyone that what's being played out

is to know if something will happen between Sandro and Claudia.

So, after 90 minutes, they meet up

in order to follow up on a lead that's even more unbelievable.

By that I mean the two characters are in the middle of the desert,

seeking meaning.

And it is Jost.

- Could this be Noto? - Let's ask someone.

They take their car and arrive in the village.

We're shown this village,

where, you could say, we're literally at the heart of nothingness.

We're shown, truly, what was pure abstraction,

and not poetic abstraction, but the geometric abstraction of the 50s.

We could also speak of de Chirico.

It's not entirely a coincidence, for Antonioni is from Ferrara,

a city which js abstract, geometric and flat.

There isn't another living soul in this place.

They don't have much fo say fo each other.

The world we're shown is composed of geometric lines, rocks, silence,

a sort of heat which seems fo be quite oppressive.

If it's not the heal which is oppressive,

it's the emptiness which is oppressive.

And here,

we'll soon arrive at this quite amazing shof,

where, al the heart of this nothingness, something wafches them.

The film is very sleek, it's very clean,

and fairly conventional, actually, in its craftsmanship.

But here, we have this forward camera movement.

It's a wide shot which starts from nothing,

it starts from empfiness,

and moves fowards a car which drives away or even disappears.

It's as if, suddenly, they'd been seen by an eye,

and that here they'd been at the heart of the contemporary loss of meaning.

In a film which is not particularly heavy-handed or exaggerated,

there's an image that carries a certain weight.

The scene ends by framing a church,

and this desert and this silence are that of this church.

It's impossible not fo think of Bergman's Winter Light.

It's literally the empty church.

It's the empty church of Winter Light,

except that, in Winfer Light,

Bergman's relationship to faith,

obviously, in the end, causes him to think

that something can continue as long as we pretend to believe,

as long as in the empty church, we continue to keep saying Mass.

Whereas in this church,

nothing at all has been said for a very long time

and nothing else will ever be said.

I believe thal, in Anfonioni's system,

there's this idea that the silence and loss of meaning at that time

was very clearly linked,

in a country where the Catholic religion is so essential as in Italy,

to the loss of faith.

It's not even the loss of faith. Faith had already been lost a long time ago.

It's the loss of simply “pretending” that faith exists,

or that religion, in one way or another,

or that an idea vaguely having fo do with religion, could structure the world in some vague way.

Meaning that here we are at the starting point of this whole issue

when we arrive in that village.

Here we arrive in the last acl,

and, in the end, it's what everything leads fowards.

These are certainly the most beautiful moments of the film

because there's this idea that finally the couple has formed.

Sandro and Claudia Jove each other.

He tells her that in this scene.

Good night, love.

Tell me you love me.

- I love you. - Tell me again.

I don't love you.

I deserve that.

It's not true. I love you.

The issue of searching for Anna has been absolutely dropped.

Simply,

we can't be in a mind-set where it's just about getting a couple fo form,

like in a more simplified or elementary version of the story.

Of the story, there remain these two individuals.

In fact, I think that the power, the beauty, of the whole last section of the film

consists of portraying the solitude of two individuals in a brand-new couple.

It's something that is al work inside both of them during the film,

meaning we could just as well speak in terms of...

the invisible script of the film,

meaning the path followed by both of them inside themselves

to eliminate the past,

to eliminate the hesitations,

to erase the impossibility, a priori.

In terms of the film,

I believe that only half of that, or only a fraction of that is actually shown.

And even, in a certain manner, what is shown

is, in general, almost parallel or derivative in those terms,

but, nonetheless, that's what is at work here.

And here we are in the moment where both of them,

faced with their own solifude,

wonder what happened.

And we are fotally with them in this question.

From Sandro's point of view,

as shown by the flirting with the young woman we saw earlfer,

causing a riot in the streef,

it's almost this sort of affirmation of his freedom,

and therefore, from that point of view,

the elimination, now accomplished, of Anna

and the marriage plans with Anna.

And from the point of view of Claudia,

well, there's something extremely beautiful that happens,

which is that now the disappearance can be played out again.

Meaning that the disappearance,

which was a disappearance of meaning aft the start of the film

is re-staged here, literally,

meaning that, the two characters,

even though they're in love, even though they're engaged,

drift apart.

We follow them, we let them live in that solitude.

And the question is,

since a disappearance has already occurred in the film,

we can very well imagine at this point that now Sandro, in turn, has also disappeared.

Now we're seeing Claudia's point of view,

and Claudia could lose Sandro like Sandro lost Anna.

In the film there was a sort of swifch in perspective

where instead of being the point of view of the man who loses the woman,

it's the point of view of the woman who loses the man.

There's the Jong duration, which I find absolutely admirable,

of the solitude of Claudia's character in her hotel room

until the moment when, progressively, she realizes thal the night has gone by.

Where she thought she was safe, she's not safe,

and perhaps Sandro has completely disappeared.

Except thal, here, we are no longer in the abstract barrenness of the island.

Here we are, where, in any case,

it's much simpler fo disappear if one wants fo disappear.

You leave. Sandro can leave, like anyone can leave who's in a couple.

And I think that the beauty of what will be played out

is that, in the end,

the mystery of the disappearance of Anna

is finally revealed to be purely metaphysical, as time goes on.

And from that point of view

it remains like a sort of dark cloud, in a certain manner,

because if marks both of them,

the characters associated with this disappearance.

Here, in the end, it'll be resolved fairly poorly.

I mean in the sense that there'll be a dramaturgic answer given,

which will be very conventional.

Sandro has disappeared because he's in the arms of another woman.

He went out fo a party.

At the party, he mel a girl and flirted with the girl who isn't even —

She's even a sort of call girl fo whom he gives a couple bills.

In fact, that sort of dramalturgic shock —

She was betrayed by the man that she loved.

Actually, it's immediately resolved,

meaning there's a moment of fright, there's a moment of flight,

and then there's the idea that it doesn't matter,

and that, in reality, there's a sort of acceplance

by Claudia of Sandro or by Sandro of Claudia

which goes much further than this “poor” dramatic turning point

of him cheating on her.

So, we are, obviously in a structure, in a plot

where, because things didn't happen the way they should have,

where events don't automatically have the consequences we might expect,

this gives if a quality of truth, or a quality of humanity,

or our faith in the reality of this couple,

which is obviously far beyond that which Ifradifional dramaturgy could offer,

which was what the film started with,

the so-called ‘pre-marital spat” of Anna and Sandro.

There's something there, which is that a frue couple has formed.

It's truly very beautiful from the point of view —

In a way, it's what makes the film “whole,” what makes the film “work,”

that the film can conclude on a successful disappearance,

a disappearance that has been resolved and overcome,

no longer on the metaphysical level, but from a human point of view.

And that's why, finally, I'm attached to the film,

because you could say that Antonioni, because he's a —

He's someone who's influenced by modern art,

influenced by abstraction.

And there's this idea, always this image of a cold, theoretical filmmaker,

when, in reality, this film is, in fact, firmly planted

in the movement from abstraction fowards humanity.

By the accumulation of nofes, of tiny fouches,

which means we're no longer seeing artificial film characters,

but characters being buill, layer by layer,

through moments, instants, intuitions

that are conlradictfory, unspoken,

and, in fact, the work of “assembling” is done.

It is the start of what may have been the freedom of cinema,

or the dramaturgic freedom of cinema.

It ends up being the act of creation,

or, in any case, the film leaves the door open fo this possibility.