L’Avventura takes us on a ride of love affairs, complicated characters, and breathtaking scenery. The story revolves around three main characters, namely Anna, Sandro and Claudia. Each of them bring a different perspective of what is happening to the table, and it intrigues the audience to find out what their purpose and hidden motives are. On the surface, L’Avventura can seem very extensive and dragging for some, but that is because Antonioni challenges the viewers to look deeper into what the characters’ do and say, and more importantly, what they don’t.

In the first act of the film, we are introduced to Anna, the daughter of an Italian diplomat. We don’t really learn much about her at the start aside from the fact that she is quite dramatic and hostile towards her lover that she hasn’t seen for a while, Sandro. While he tries to figure her out and when they eventually make love, her close friend Claudia is seen framed in the middle of the curtains, peeking just enough into their room. This gives us a little foreshadowing into what eventually happens to the trio.

Not long after, they go on a boat trip in order to visit a remote island. More characters are introduced, and their interactions follow. Anna even fakes seeing a shark in the ocean, and only telling Claudia this in the dressing room. Nobody can figure out what is on Anna’s mind, not even Sandro. He even asks her, “Why should we be here talking, arguing? Believe me Anna, words are becoming less and less necessary; they create misunderstandings.” Soon after their quarrel on the island, Anna disappears. The next acts of the film focus on how the other characters coped with her loss, starting off with shock, then confusion, sadness, and ultimately acceptance.

In an unexpected turn of events, Sandro passionately kisses Claudia, while she pulls herself back and questions why he did that. Viewers are just made to speculate if these two characters are simply supporting ones, or if there is something more to them. Throughout the rest of the story, it revolves around Claudia trying to wrestle with her feelings towards Sandro and her feelings towards her missing friend. Ultimately, and strangely, the two start to act as lovers and grow closer towards each other while investigating Anna’s death.

If the audience didn’t think that was enough, however, Sandro takes another turn once again. When he asks her to marry him, Claudia replied, “How should I answer? No.” It seems as though they might have progressed in their relationship with each other, Claudia still cannot override the guilt and pain she faces from missing her friend. But nothing will beat the final scene of L’Avventura, where Claudia sees Sandro cheating on her with Gloria, a very beautiful writer and aspiring “actress”, but later on goes to him weeping on a bench and watches the horizon while comforting him.

Indeed, there is no doubt that L’Avventura was made to confuse, shock, and even annoy its audience. The characters may be seen as uptight, apathetic and spoiled with lust and glamor. The story brought us many twists and turns, and made us hate characters we might have loved at first. But perhaps what this film was trying to tell us is that people, even those that seem to have it all—looks, riches, power—nothing will really fill in the emptiness that they hold within.

Persona could not have been more appropriately named, since the word came from early 20^th century Latin meaning ‘mask’ or ‘character played by an actor’. The whole movie revolves around this theme while being ambiguous about the characters and their motives in the most captivating way. At the start of the film, we are greeted with an interesting set of moving images to say the least. To the unsuspecting audience, these images are nothing but random and, for some, disturbing. It ends with a little boy touching a screen with what appears to be the faces of two women that would be introduced to us later: Alma and Elizabeth.

We get to learn more about the two characters as the story unfolds, with Elizabeth as an actress that decided to stop speaking and Alma as her personal caretaker. What makes this film unique is that while Alma is the one doing most, if not all, the talking, we get to connect with and consider both women as main characters. Upon watching the first few minutes it seems that Elizabeth is the main character, but Alma reveals more of herself such as her experiences, thoughts, and even regrets. At one point, they start to dress alike, appear to be morphing together in dream sequences, and a scene shows Alma saying to herself as Elizabeth is sleeping that she smells of sleep and tears. These hint at the audience that there is an underlying meaning to the two women, without being too straightforward.

The cinematography of the film also gives us a look into the minds of Alma and Elizabeth. In some of the scenes, hands are being highlighted since they can also be a sign of expression. At the beginning, Alma’s hands are seen to be very restless while trying to hide it from the doctor. As the two women start to become closer, they compare hands. At the very end, during the monologue, Alma is seen banging her hands on the table in frustration. This shows us that even without talking, we get to understand what the women are feeling at the moment, aside from looking at their facial expressions and body language. Another technique being used by Bergman is breaking the fourth wall, as a film strip is being shown at the start and end of the movie, and the film “breaks” in the middle of Elizabeth and Alma’s big fight. At the prologue sequence, a little boy is seen touching a screen showing a blurry face of a woman that turns into Elizabeth or Alma.

But one should not overanalyze the film, but instead appreciate it for what it is. Another clue would be looking at the definition of the title, which is “the particular type of character that a person seems to have, which is often different from the real or private character that person has” (Persona, n.d.). Alma starts to rant about having to have a “face” that she shows to others. She asks Elizabeth at one point, “Can you be one and the same person at the same time?” And sheds light on a truth that we are all familiar with. We all wear masks every day, and sometimes this can take a toll on us. We do not act the same when we are with certain friends, family, loved ones, or when we are alone. Knowing this, one possible film theory would be that Elizabeth is Alma’s persona or the other way around. As for my main takeaway, it would be Alma’s realization that maybe we would be better off if we allow ourselves to be who we truly are.

Works Cited:

Persona. (n.d.) In Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary. Retrieved from https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/persona

“Is this a tragedy or a comedy? Either way it’s a masterpiece,” says Émile Récamier. At first, Une Femme Est Une Femme presents itself to its viewers a seemingly simple and straightforward plot: the main character, Angela wants a baby. Yet, the film is far from uncomplicated because of the way Jean-Luc Godard wanted the narrative to play out. By having an ambiguous genre, unpredictable characters, and witty pokes on musicals, watching this leaves its audience dazed and thinking.

Boxing the movie into a certain stereotype is almost impossible, because it breaks many of our preconceived notions of what a romantic comedy or a musical—let alone film—should be. Angela, with her do-it-herself attitude explains quite explicitly early on while singing and dancing, “I’d like to be in a musical…with Cyd Charisse…and Gene Kelly…Choreography…by Bob Fosse!”. Scenes like this, together with the abrupt music cuts, allow us to realize that this is not your typical movie. For one, the characters seem to break the fourth wall many times and obviously at that. Another notable scene is when the main characters Angela and Émile are arguing with each other, then it cuts straight to them kissing afterwards. It makes viewers feel as though they are being reminded that we are not just watching these people’s lives, but that everything is one big, entertaining spectacle.   

Even though we are constantly being reminded that this is a work of fiction, one can’t help but notice Godard’s play on realism. The outward façade of the film and its supposedly simple plot actually unfolds not long after to show us the real situation of Angela. Viewers begin to understand more what is going on inside the quirky exotic dancer, as we follow her throughout the day, and even fight with her lover, Émile. Love and relationships are not uncommon topics in art, after all. At one point, she says, “It’s not fair. It’s always when you’re with someone that you’re not with them. And vice versa.” This scene is particularly striking because we get to see things in her point of view, literally. Clips of strangers walking past and staring into the camera makes audiences realize this is what she goes through on a daily basis.

While the overall theme might seem heavy, the movie mixes in just the right amount of comedy and satire to keep us from thinking that this is solely a drama. Some of the comedy was physical, like Angela trying to slam the door but failing thrice, or the couple arguing by taking turns holding the lamp and looking for books with insults in the title. Other times it was through clever dialogue, such as when Alfred outsmarted the bartender with the question, “Answer yes, and I owe you 100 francs. Answer no, and you owe me 100, okay? Can you loan me 100 francs?”

But what some of us miss is that the film is not about whether or not the couple gets back together and lives happily ever after. It is a narrative that talks about womanhood and freedom through its main star of the film, Angela. The number of times she changes her alone gives us an indication of what kind of woman she is—unpredictable. In one of the scenes, she asks Émile if he would rather have fish or meat for dinner. Even though he would always choose the exact opposite of what she actually made, she still managed to present her well-done roast beef to him. Taking it into a larger scale, even though Émile was against having a baby with her at first, in the end Angela got what she wanted. The film ends with him telling her, “Angela, you are horrid,” and her reply being, “No, I am a woman,” together with a playful wink.

But although she is very unique and has her own quirks, this film talks about women in a general sense as well. A lot of the time, their dialogue gives us a peek into what actually goes on in women’s minds. Sometimes it is playfully, like when she tells Alfred to stop avoiding the question, but when he states he is just following her example, she remarks, “Women are allowed to avoid the question.” Other times it is in a somber mood, like when she is crying in the kitchen and says that we should boycott women who don’t cry. All of these are realities that we are all too familiar with, such as that sometimes women don’t say what they mean, but other times they do as they are complicated. But one thing is for certain—women always get what they want in the end.