Alejandro González Iñárritu calls Michelangelo Antonioni a “cinematic animal”
At one point in the past two decades or so, the Mexican filmmaker Alejandro G. Iñárritu was considered to be one of the most exciting directors of contemporary cinema, holding the same stature as the likes of Denis Villeneuve and Christopher Nolan do today. With three Academy Awards to his name, the Iñárritu has certainly made his mark on the industry, however, even if his prominence has quietened in recent years.
Arriving at the attention of the industry at the turn of the new millennium, Iñárritu’s success started early, releasing the Oscar-nominated drama Amores Perros in 2000, a film that has since gone on to gain worldwide recognition. Having won Hollywood backing, the director’s follow-up film, 21 Grams, was shot in English and featured some of the industry’s greatest names, including Naomi Watts, Sean Penn and Benicio Del Toro.
Once 21 Grams became a critical hit, his fate in Hollywood was essentially sealed, elevating his game with the Brad Pitt movie Babel in 2006 and Biutiful in 2010, before his place in the cinematic history book was sealed with the Best Picture winner Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) in 2014. One year later, he impressed again with The Revenant starring Leonardo DiCaprio, but then he disappeared from Hollywood altogether.
Seven years later, Iñárritu has returned with the release of Bardo, a Spanish-language film that takes the director back to his roots, informing his style from some of his favourite filmmakers of all time.
Speaking in Volume 33, Issue 1 of Sight and Sound magazine, Iñárritu provided some insight into his film taste and cinematic inspirations, picking out ten movies that he considers to be the greatest of all time. Toward the top of his list, the director picked Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1960 movie L’avventura, calling the Italian auteur “a cinematic animal” in the process.
“Antonioni is for me a cinematic animal. Every one of his films contains its own pace and language,” Iñárritu told the publication, explaining, “In L’avventura, the beauty and complexity is almost uncomfortable. Its ending always leaves a void within me, which can only be filled by watching it again”.
Known as one of the greatest Italian filmmakers of all time, Antonioni is remembered for a handful of timeless classics, including Blow-Up, The Passenger and, of course, L’avventura. Released toward the start of his career, L’avventura stars Gabriele Ferzetti and Monica Vitti and tells the story of a young woman who goes missing whilst on a boat trip with her boyfriend, only for the man to fall in love with the woman’s best friend.
In addition to L’avventura, Iñárritu also dished out some love for such films as Andrei Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev, Roy Andersson’s You, The Living, Ingmar Bergman’s Persona and Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita. Whilst he honoured Antonioni as a “cinematic animal,” he also stated that the Playtime director, Jacques Tati, “saw the world 50 years ahead of his time”.
