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Poster for L'Avventura

L'Avventura

A new adventure in filmmaking...

1960 · 2h 24m · Not Rated Drama, Mystery, Romance
Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni

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Overview

Claudia and Anna join Anna's lover, Sandro, on a boat trip to a remote volcanic island. When Anna goes missing, a search is launched. In the meantime, Sandro and Claudia become involved in a romance despite Anna's disappearance, though the relationship suffers from guilt and tension.

Director and cast

Critics on Rotten Tomatoes

Top critics, in their words

All reviews
94%
Tomatometer
Fresh

It's easy to bash Antonioni as passe. It's harder, I think, to explain the cinematic power of the way his camera watches, and waits, while the people on screen stave off a dreadful loneliness.

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
Fresh

Antonioni created, as the Cannes jury put it in 1960, a new language of cinema, one that perfectly expressed a modern alienation that's enduring as well as the film.

Zachary Wigon, L.A. Weekly
Fresh

A graduate of Screenwriting 1-2 might dismiss this method as casualness or even carelessness, but every shot and bit of business in L'Avventura represents calculation of the highest order.

Andrew Sarris, Village Voice
Fresh

The first ten minutes make it clear that this is the work of a discerning, troubled, uniquely gifted artist who speaks to us through the refined center of his art.

Stanley Kauffmann, The New Republic
Fresh

It's a work that requires some patience -- a 145-minute mystery that strategically elides any conventional denouement -- but more than amply repays the effort.

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

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