Reviews

In my cinema studies i learned how this movie is considered a masterpiece of italian modern cinema and watching it (more than one time) just didnt help understand why. This movie is also compared to Godard and the Nouvelle Vague style, same Nouvelle Vague that welcomed the movie when it premiered, while italian critique of the time didnt appreciate it as well. Bertolucci was 23 when he did this movie so it is understandable that the work isn't totally flawless, but, how it happened many time in film history (especially italian) some movies are overrated just because an important critique applauded it or, like in this case, cause of the future work of the director. Let's talk frankly: if the young Bertolucci after this movie would have left the movie director career no one, i mean NO ONE would even know about the existence of this film. Let's talk about the film.

I am not going to analyze every aspect nor the story in its entireness cause it would take too much time. First of all the comparison with Godard; more than a familiarity it is an imitation to me, and sometimes i found that pretty lazy. The famous "glasses scene" for example: it reminds of Godard sure, but it feels like it's just thrown out there with not much thinking behind it. The dimension of joke, of the godardian irony, isn't the style, doesn'fit in this movie (that is more like ideologic/political and romantic); some compared FabriZio and Michel (from "a bout de souffle") while in my opinion they have nothing in common; Fabrizio has an high opinion of himself, he goes around lecturing his friends about communism like it is the only thing that really matters, he is always serious, when not with that sad/empty/unhappy look on his face. Fabrizio is in "great pain" cause truthfully he knows that marrying Clelia would be the easiest and more comfortable thing to do meanwhile he's in an affair with her aunt (and that's creepy cause Stendhal, the author of the novel that inspired the movie, wrote that 120 years earlier, i understand the "not caring of social/moral values" but times are changed my friend, in sixties people already know about the risk (for the child) of sexual relations with blood relatives...). Fabrizio is just boring and rethorical , nothing make you empathize with him. On the other hand Michel Poiccard from Godard's "A bout de souffle" is an interesting character, he fully lives his life, takes his chances, and even though he is a thief, a killer, a no good he still has an appeal on the viewer (that paradoxically is repeatedly made fun of and insulted by him); While Fabrizio is a Stereotype of the politically engaged youngster that (in the end) don't even practice what he preaches, Michel is a guy that know what he wants and he spend time acting for that, instead of lecturing people and make up political/romantic nonsense. About the style similarities: i think that Godard style is coherent with HIS OWN movies, his own scripts that game he engages with the viewer, the irony, the joke; this same style taken and used out of context on one hand hardly fit, on the other hand i think it even deminishes the style itself, making it look (like in "before the revolution") just an editing error. The locations: One is in Paris, great city full of lights, movement, one is in Parma, a miedieval, close minded, country side little city...and that says a lot.

P. S. I don't appreciate a bit the view of women that this movie would like to give: just objects, things that are there to please/make feel important men, the one that has the right to choose his doll, while they are there waiting (stepping further and further away from Godard)

In the end it is not a bad movie, i gave 4 stars as a personal judgement and i understand who likes it but in the complex i didn't appreciate it much. Sorry for my english.

As I said in the title, my feelings for this movie are right in between of those two. Boredom, for a lot of meaningless and unbearable scenes and dialogues, especially in the second half of the picture; rage, for the one i felt towards those characters. Speaking of which , there's no character you should like or love: Anna, the bored girl, the personification of emptiness, dull pessimism, literally a figure consistent as the air; Sandro, the envious man with lot of regrets that is incapable of loving something and that would jump into bed with everything that breathes; Claudia, the "bimbo" (a dear friend of Anna..), that sacrifices herself to escort Sandro in the desperate research of Anna, with so much commitment and desperation that they nearly go to bed together after a few hours, that two days after she has known Sandro "wants all that HE wants". The climax of the hate i felt for them is maybe in the last scene, where a jealous Claudia finds the "love of his life" kissing and cuddling with a prostitute (an expensive one) in the hall of the hotel they are staying in, she runs out in the balcony, and she cries, desperate (as if she thought that a man that didn't spare a tear for his ex, that could be dead or worse, had loyalty towards her, his new doll...) Sandro runs to her, not before paying the prostitute, and after that....he cries too, the poor little boy... and as if that wasn't enough, she forgives him.

I can say of myself many things, but for sure I don't get bored easily. And the funny thing is that the director, Antonioni, was surely inspired from an Alberto Moravia's book called, precisely, "la Noia" (Boredom). And his intention was to show this boredom mixed with regrets and incapacity to communicate of this rich people. He wanted the picture to look realistic, and i'm okay with it, but i can accept reality, for how much tedious and bitter it is, cause it is reality and in most of cases you can't run from it but you have to front it... but dear Michelangelo (rest in peace) this is a movie and if it isn't asking too much i would like to love/like at least one character, to help me get through the movie. If you make me hate all the characters of the movie, how do you expect i would like it?

They made me study this movie at the "film history" course at the university and it is a remarkable piece of italian cinema according to lot of critiques. For what is worth i appreciate the Photography, the editing, the location and i can even appreciate that it was filmed by a small troupe with lots of budget problems, but i really don't appreciate the script, the acting (in most of the cases) and the message that supposedly and passively the movie would like to refer. That's my view of it, most critiques would chop my head off but i don't care.