ADVENTURE, THE (L'AVVENTURA)

source: WIKIPEDIA

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1960 - Italy/France (Cino del Duca/Produzioni Cinematografiche Europee/Societé Cinématographique Lyre)

DIRECTOR: Michelangelo Antonioni
SCRIPT: Michelangelo Antonioni
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Aldo Scavarda
MUSIC: Giovanni Fusco




    When L'Avventura was screened to the audiences of the Cannes Film Festival in 1960 it was actually booed by the large majority of the critics and both Antonioni and the female star of the film Monica Vitti pretty much legged it from the cinema. I guess it tells us a thing or two about those critics. It has happened to so many masterpieces though. At first misunderstood and underestimated, the time and devotion of the fans eventually give those films well deserved justice. It's such a common pattern it's almost a rule. Which, in turn, is unfortunate, since where's a rule, there are bound to be exceptions. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear...

A ONE AND A TWO (YI YI)

SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA

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2000 - Taiwan (Atom Films, Nemuru Otoko Seisaku Iinkai, Omega Project)

DIRECTOR: Edward Yang
SCRIPT: Edward Yang
PHOTOGRAPHY: Wei-han Yang
MUSIC: Kai-Li Peng

      There is an old Polish poem based on folklore fairy tales about a noble man, Twardowski, who signs a pact with the devil. Wealth and all in exchange for the soul. Usual T&C's apply. The repossession of the soul was supposed to take place in Rome, which made it quite easy for Twardowski to wave his middle finger in front of the devil's face for long years simply by not travelling to Italy. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. Of course, as it always happens in those kind of stories, all this fooling around wasn't meant to last. And so, one night, Twardowski found himself in an inn, where the devil jumped at him demanding the soul. Twardowski tried to shrug the devil off but it turned out that the name of the inn, which he didn't pay attention to, was... yes, you got it - Rome. Give yourself a biscuit. The story goes on a little bit more but we are going to stop here, because this is where the parallel between the story and my encounter with A ONE AND A TWO lies. You see, if I'm Twardowski and the film is the inn then... well, then the inn isn't called Rome, naturally, it's called New Wave Cinema.

Oh my.

TWO OR THREE THINGS I KNOW ABOUT HER (2 OU 3 CHOSES QUE JE SAIS D'ELLE)

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1967 - France (Anouchka, Argos, Carrose, Parc)

DIRECTOR: Jean-Luc Godard

SCRIPT: Jean-Luc Godard, Catherine Vimenet

PHOTOGRAPHY: Raoul Coutard

  

   It is quite funny, how deciding on watching the films from 1001 MOVIES... in alphabetical order rather than chronological, accidentally put together two films that suddenly created some sort of a context for each other. In the red corner, an Italian Marxist Bertolucci with his 1900 and in the... other red corner a French Marxist, Godard with TWO OR THREE THINGS... You think a draw? Of course not, that would be far too easy and too little fun as well. Only because they both hark back to the same ideology, doesn't mean there are any similarities. Which is just as good because there are none. And actually, I tell you what, forget Bertolucci. Godard deserves some punches without anyone else's help.

1900 (Novecento)

source: IMDB

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1976 - Italy/France/West Germany (Produzioni Europee Associati)

DIRECTOR: Bernardo Bertolucci

SCRIPT: Franco Arcalli, Bernardo Bertolucci, Giuseppe Bertolucci

PHOTOGRAPHY: Vittorio Storaro

MUSIC: Ennio Morricone  

   So there you go. Only second film on the list and I'm already struggling to come up with something witty to kick off with. But there are two options though. I could take all the blame, go down the sackcloth and ashes route, admit publicly that I'm nothing more than a half-wit pretending to know anything about cinema (or anything at all for that matter), or... well, blame the film. But can you? Can you actually turn around, rise your head and face the behemoth of a film, backed up by names like Bertolucci, Storaro, Morricone, Lancaster, De Niro, Depardieu, Sutherland? Can you stand confidently in the way of a pounding train that this five-and-a-half hour of historical, political, social, nostalgic, coming-straight-from-the-heart epic of a movie is and still hope to survive? Wouldn't it be a blasphemy? A lunacy? An attention-seeking stunt? Would my family, my friends, my friends' pets ant their fleas not be cursed to oblivion by the lynching mob of film critics with their steaming Starbucks cups and cheap Biros raised in angry, clenched fists?

Maybe. But it's still better than admitting that it was me, who didn't get the brilliance of 1900.