The Strange Familiars

I just started watching La Notte (by the same director), and I was thinking about what I’d say about it, when I realized I hadn’t reviewed L’Avventura. I guess the most important thing is how midcentury and therefore familiar—and therefore how strange—it is, despite the fact that they’re speaking Italian (and I guess it’s black and white, and it’s blah blah blah, whatever else). It’s obviously in my system an observational comedy, not unlike “Nights & Weekends” (2008); a very quiet sort of film.… 

Both L’Avventura and La Notte deal obliquely with the secondary place of the women in society, and subtle things like that—L’Avventura also deals with the feeling that midcentury moderns aren’t really living up to their Renaissance ancestors, for example—and are rather similar; I guess the differentiation in themes between the ‘Adventure’ which I’ve seen to the end, and what I’ve seen already of the ‘Night’, is that the Adventure is kinda about, I don’t know, I mean, they’re not druggies, and Sgt. Pepper hadn’t come out yet, but that kinda wealthy socialite with opportunities to have fun but no responsibilities (and also very flimsy relationships), and in the ‘Night’ more the kinda literary hypocrisy of this guy who’s supposed to be really smart, who doesn’t really know anything more about life, than anybody else. 

Additional comment: It’s not an inspiring movie, you know, because there’s no element of overcoming things, but the other side of the coin is that there’s really no element of destruction, except perhaps in the most oblique way. It’s interesting, teachable.