YOUR ATTENTION, PLEASE: This post was originally at least twice as long.  Somewhere in the posting of it, half of it got mysteriously eaten by some livejournal program glitch.  This makes me angry, but I currently don't have the time or energy to re-write it.  Suffice to say, I liked this movie and so did urbaniak  .


[beginning of original post]

You know how I mentioned last time around how L'Avventura has no plot, yet is still tremendously exciting? Well, L'Eclisse has even less plot than L'Avventura, and is even more exciting. It's almost like Antonioni is daring himself to stretch this method of designing narratives as far as it will go.

[significant portion of post mysteriously eaten here.]


[description of first 50 minutes of the movie -- Vittoria's difficulty with relationships, her restlessness, her discomfort, her flight to Verona]

[we join the post half-way through -- I am describing a rather amazing 10-minute scene set in the buzz and flurry of a bad day at the stock exchange]

The first thing you need to know about L'Avventura is that it has no plot. The second thing you need to know about L'Avventura is that, in spite of having no plot, it is still tremendously exciting.

I don't know how it manages to do that.

This was a rare instance of urbaniak  actually requesting a movie to watch, rather than the two of us just kind of pawing through my DVD collection until we find something we both want to watch. He showed up with the movie clutched in his slender, spidery, indie-stalwart hands, still it its shrinkwrap, still with the price tag from Amoeba on it.

INT. ELEVATOR -- NIGHT

Ingmar Bergman and Michaelangelo Antonioni ride in (what else) silence.