La Notte

Saw La Notte, a classy little Antonioni film. Antonioni uses his default imagery of urbanely dressed people at lavish parties and in run-down neighbourhoods. There's rich drunk people and a night club act that we watch the entirety of. The film follows a writer and his literary wife over the course of a day. They open the film with a visit to their friend and mentor who is dying. The wife is so moved by his illness that she flees the room and weeps in the stairwell. The husband (the writer) follows her but is side-tracked by a passing nymphomaniac who gaspingly smooches him. This sets up the twin themes of loss and sex. I think the sex theme becomes a sort of subjugated-women theme, but it's hard to tell because of course the 60s were a slightly more sexist time than now and female sexuality may have just been considered synonymous with female subjugation. At any rate, these two themes are brought together in a climax that is pretty dazzling but unfortunately also tiresome.

The films of the New Wave of the 60s in general, and the films of Antonioni in specific, I find to be quite boring. They often take place at endless parties where fidelity is tested, or some version of decadence is explored. I used to rankle at the idea of sympathizing with rich twits, but now I realize it's just a simplifying metaphor. These people are free to devote their entire day to a difficult problem (ie fidelity or integrity) without having to worry about bills and taxes and other such distractions. That said, I'm not at a point in my life where the problems that preoccupied the Europeans of the 60s are even real to me, never mind actually troublesome. I'm too young and innocent for this world-weary malaise. I understand it, I just don't respond to it.

So La Notte is the usual thing. It was dry and restrained, arch and cool, and left me completely unmoved. It wasn't horrible and it was definitely not bad. I hesitate to say I thought it was 'good' however. Oh well. Someday, maybe.