L'Avventura

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L'Avventura
DVD Cover
Directed by	Michelangelo Antonioni
Produced by	Raymond Hakim Robert Hakim Cino Del Duca Amato Pennasilico Luciano Perugia
Written by	Michelangelo Antonioni Elio Bartolini Tonino Guerra
Starring	Monica Vitti Gabriele Ferzetti
Music by	Giovanni Fusco
Cinematography	Aldo Scavarda
Editing by	Eraldo Da Roma
Distributed by	Janus Films (USA)
Release date(s)	1960 (premiere at Cannes) 29 June 1960 4 March 1961
Running time	145 min
Country	Italy / France
Language	Italian
Followed by	La Notte L'Eclisse
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L'Avventura (The Adventure) is a 1960 Italian film written and directed by Michelangelo Antonioni. Monica Vitti and Gabriele Ferzetti star. The film is notable for its slow pacing and careful composition, and for its unusual narrative structure. It was produced on location in Italy under difficult financial and physical conditions and made Monica Vitti an international star. The film is the first of a trilogy by Antonioni; it is followed by La Notte and L'Eclisse.

1 Synopsis
2 Cast
3 Responses
4 External links

[edit] Synopsis

Actress Monica Vitti in Michelangelo Antonioni's L'Avventura (1960).

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

L'Avventura has an unusual narrative structure in which the apparently important central mystery is gradually forgotten and left unsolved. The story begins with a group of rich couples from Rome who take a boat trip and visit a virtually unpopulated volcanic island off the coast of Sicily. One of them, a young woman named Anna, wanders off and vanishes without a trace. The others search for her, but then give up, gradually adjust to her disappearance and drift back into their own lives. The rest of the story is somewhat centered on the relationship that develops between Anna's lover and her best friend. The final scene has nothing directly to do with Anna (except perhaps for the thought that her fate is unknowable) but much with how people cope with themselves and each other.

[edit] Cast

Gabriele Ferzetti as Sandro
Monica Vitti as Claudia
Lea Massari as Anna
Dominique Blanchar as Giulia
Renzo Ricci as Anna's Father
Dorothy de Poliolo as Gloria Perkins
Esmeralda Ruspoli as Patrizia
James Addams as Corrado
Lelio Luttazzi as Raimondo
Giovanni Petrucci as Young Prince
Jack O'Connell as Old man on the island
Angela Tommasi Di Lampedusa as The Princess

[edit] Responses

Released in 1960, the film was booed by some members of the audience during its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival; however, it won the Special Jury Prize. Although the film influenced the visual language of cinema, forever changing how subsequent movies looked, and has been named by some critics as one of the best ever made, it has been criticized by others for its uneventful plot, allegedly slow pacing and existentialist themes. Along with much of Antonioni's other work, L'Avventura is often cited as an early feminist film with strong and richly characterized female protagonists.^{[citation needed]}

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