L’AVVENTURA Michelangelo Antonioni 1960
“In this final image, Antonioni realized the pain of being alive.
It was as if two people were exposed, left alone
with nothing but the knowledge of their own solitude.”
L’ECLIPSE Michelangelo Antonioni 1962
“A couple always meet at the same spot.
On the corner under a tree, near a building under construction,
just surrounded by modern housing development.
One day, they make a plan to meet.
They are both trying to keep the relationship going,
but they have simply lost the will to commit.
And neither of them shows up.
But the film goes on.
You keep expecting something dramatic to happen,
and it never does.
Instead, Antonioni’s camera keeps showing us things.
The things around Delon and Vitti. The fence,
the piece of wood floating in the barrel of water,
the lines of the cross walk, the construction sight.
It’s not as simple as life goes on, which means that people goes on.
At the end of eclispe, Antonioni leaves us with nothing but time,
staring back at us.
The world becomes a kind of shell around the absence of these two people
who have failed to meet.
In other words, it’s not what’s there, it’s what isn’t there.”
MY VOYAGE TO ITALY Martin Scorsese 1999