L'Avventura (1960)

opening : Anna enters

embarkment : arrival at the piazza

discovery+betrayal : Claudia flees the palace

transformation : Claudia is self-realized

Michelangelo Antonioni's L'Avventura is a subtle and complex film. Each frame of each scene is meticulously composed with artistic intention. Antonioni “holds his shot, all his shots, just that bit longer than would be strictly necessary for them to make their point (Nowell-Smith 199). Arches are used several times as thematic devices in the film, always as reinforcing accentuating moments of transition and transformation. It is appropriate for this discussion that the film opens in Rome, home to the first triumphal arches of antiquity. The arch holds an enduring place in the collective unconscious and is therefore a powerful thematic tool when utilized as backdrop in film.

The arch is used in L'Avventura to underscore both moments of personal transformation of particular characters and also to acknowledge the broader cultural upheaval of the time. When attached to specific characters, arches work both as literal portals and also as moments of transition from one psycho-emotional state to another, specifically from idealized innocence to self-realization and harsh reality. Culturally, they represents themes of tension and transition in Italy between old, traditional values and new, contemporary culture.

In the opening frames of the film Anna walks through a grand stone arch, out of her father's old Roman villa. She is literally leaving her father's traditional Italian home to set off on a several day yacht trip with her young modern friends, who also turn out to be rich, bored and promiscuous in their sexual liaisons. Anna will be reuniting with her own lover, Sandro, whom she has not seen for several months. By the end of the film one realizes that Anna probably assumed (correctly) he had been unfaithful to her, which explains the reluctance with which she embarks on the yacht trip.

In a statement distributed at Cannes when L'Avventura was presented there, Antonioni states “..we make use of an aging morality, of outworn myths, of ancient conventions...Why do we respect such a morality? (Leprohon 91)” There is a tension in the opening scene between Anna and her father which reflects the tension between her father's traditional values and Anna's contemporary lifestyle. Her father mentions that Sandro will never marry her; Anna claims that until that moment she had not wanted him to. In the background we see a row of ugly mid-rise apartment buildings under construction juxtaposed with the family's traditional stone villa. This backdrop reinforces the tension between old and new Rome, while the arch through which Anna passes in the first moments of the film reinforces her own passage from her role as traditional daughter to that of contemporary lover.

In the very next scene Anna and Claudia, Anna's close friend, are driven to the piazza where they will be meeting up with Sandro. The car passes a row of old Roman porticoes and drives through a grand stone arch into the piazza. A group of three nuns in traditional habits walk across the foreground of the scene as the car pulls in and parks. The two young women then emerge from their sleek, modern convertible, a clear counterpoint to the previous image of the nuns. The ride to the meeting spot is perhaps a transitional time, while the passage through the arch marks the actual moment of embarkment on the whimsical journey.

Anna, Claudia and Sandro meet the other four friends and the group sets off on their adventure. They stop to swim and sunbathe alongside a deserted island off the coast of Sicily. Here, Anna mysteriously disappears, and after a short search by the entire group only Claudia and Sandro continue to look for her. They search towns along the east coast of Sicily while the others go back to their decadent lives of leisure. Anna is almost forgotten, however, as Claudia and Sandro embark on their own love affair. Claudia does not come from the privileged background of her social peers but rather from a sensible middle class upbringing from which she still holds ideas of right and wrong. Iis implied that she is disgusted by the casual infidelities of her friends and also wracked with guilt about her affair with Sandro. Gradually, however, she is seduced, both by Sandro and by the extravagant lifestyle of the wealthy elite who have accepted her into their ranks.

Toward the end of the film, Claudia discovers Sandro with another woman. She flees the palace where they have all been partying, running out through the grand stone arch that marks the palace grounds. She has been betrayed and is emotionally devastated. It is her moment of loss of innocence, her departure from fantasy and arrival at reality, and her realization that she is now part of the world in which love is fickle and lovers unfaithful.

We recall that Anna entered the opening scene through an arch and now see Claudia entering the final scene through one. One woman has replaced the other. Pierre Leproham suggests that there is a “psychological substitution, going beyond the physical substitution of one woman for another..[which]..endows the plot with its full credibility (Leprohan 66).” Sandro follows Claudia through the same gateway arch, which based on his next actions might also be seen as arrival at self-awareness (an awareness and disgust at his own moral weakness). However, Gene Youngblood, who narrates a commentary of the film, argues that one character cannot appropriate another's metonymy, meaning that once an object is symbolically attached to one character it does not hold meaning for others.

The final scene finds Claudia and Sandro on a rooftop next to a crumbling church, overlooking the sea with islands in the distance. In this scene we witness Claudia's complete arrival at acceptance and self-realization. Throughout most of the scene, she is framed with a large arched opening behind her, which symbolizes her complete passage into self-awareness and acceptance of reality, as messy as it may be. We witness in her facial expressions the transition from feelings of shock, betrayal and sorrow to those of acceptance, strength and ultimately, pity for Sandro. At this moment in the film a critical shift in power also occurs, and the arched opening accompanies the shift. While Sandro had previously held the typically macho role in the relationship, he has become a sniveling weakling, too ashamed of himself to even ask forgiveness. Claudia, on the other hand, has found her strength and is now the one in control, both of the current moment and the future of their relationship. The arched opening therefore embodies feminine power, even perhaps a womb, for several critics assert that in this scene Claudia's relationship with Sandro shifts from one of lover to that of nurturer/mother. (As a side note, shots of Sandro in this scene are punctuated by a phallic tower standing in the distance behind him. Antonioni refers to the “malaise of eros” as another central theme of L'avventura, and in this scene we see the two main characters' emotional torment underscored by symbols of their respective sexuality.)

Antonioni demonstrates the subtle yet enduring power of the arch to intensify moments of transition and transformation in film, specifically in L'Avventura. The arch's power lies in its flexibility; in this case it alternately symbolizes intimately personal psycho-emotional shifts and also more global cultural and societal ones.