One of the main works by Michelangelo Antonioni—a key figure of modernist cinema— explores alienation and the disintegration of a relationship.
The action of La Notte develops over 24 hours and follows the family drama of a writer (Marcello Mastroianni) and his wife Lidia (Jeanne Moreau). The now distant couple try to revive their relationship, but every word and gesture only reaffirms their mutual estrangement.
A visit to a dying friend, a book launch, a wander through the streets of Milan, a night club and then a villa party: the couple slowly move from the city center towards the outskirts, eventually finding themselves on an empty golf course. A sudden episode of physical closeness makes the distance between them ever more obvious.
La Notte is the second film in Antonioni’s unofficial alienation trilogy, which also includes L’Avventura (1960) and L’Eclisse (1962), and captured better than any of his other works what we today recognize as Antonioni’s aesthetic, with its attention to architecture, cityscapes, long takes, and drama focused on inner rather than outer events.
The deliberately simple storyline allows the viewer to follow the disintegration of emotional ties, the loss of connection, and the descent into loneliness against the background of the new, postwar, modern world.
The film will be screened in Italian with Russian subtitles.
La Notte
Director: Michaelangelo Antonioni
Italy, 1961. 122 min.
18+