‘L’Avventura’: The influential movie Edgar Wright called “an existential riddle to baffle audiences”
Existentialism has never been at the forefront of Edgar Wright as a filmmaker, which doesn’t automatically disqualify him from enjoying the more philosophical side of cinema as an audience member.
It might have been a comedy that brought him to prominence and mainstream attention, but Wright has been making a concerted effort to ensure he doesn’t end up being pigeonholed in any one genre. The drawback is that another reunion with Simon Pegg might be a way away, with the director’s focus continuing to fall outside of his most famous and trusted collaborator.
More than a decade has passed since the release of The World’s End capped off the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy, and Wright knows fine well that fans of the triptych that began with Shaun of the Dead and continued with Hot Fuzz have a constant hankering for more. He’ll no doubt reunite with Pegg and Nick Frost eventually, but for the time being, his attention belongs elsewhere.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was Wright’s first major evolution, and while it bombed thunderously at the box office, the hybrid of comic book adaptation and video game-inspired action epic quickly became a firm cult favourite.
Baby Driver saw him turn his hand to the getaway thriller, which was lent a novel and immaculately constructed twist by having virtually every framework in synchronicity with the soundtrack to create a delight for both the ears and the eyes. If anything, Last Night in Soho was his biggest departure by far, and it was only fitting it ended up as the most polarising.
The psychological horror was his most ambitious on a narrative and visual level, but the labyrinthine narrative and storytelling sleight of hand didn’t win over quite as many folks as his previous features. To be fair, it’s better to swing and miss than not swing at all, with Wright next taking on the might of Stephen King and trying to banish Arnold Schwarzenegger from memory with his remake of The Running Man.
As mentioned, none of those aforementioned movies are particularly existential with the exception of Last Night in Soho in some respects, with the lofty questions posed therein clearly having never held much appeal to him as an auteur. However, maestro Michelangelo Antonioni thrived in exploring that side of cinema without contemplating offering a definitive answer, with one of his films continuing to be pored over more than half a century after its release.
So dense that even noted cinephile Martin Scorsese called it “unforgiving,” 1960’s L’Avventura follows the disappearance of a young woman during a boat trip to a scenic – and volcanic – island. A search is mounted, romance blossoms between the missing woman’s best friend and her lover, and the established language of cinema is casually discarded in favour of much navel-gazing.
For many, L’Avventura is one of the greatest movies ever made and a pioneer for how filmmakers could go against the grain to inject their work with reflections of their own self. For others, it’s an endurance test that’s hard to get into but very nice to look at. Wright appreciates the film for what it is and admires its determination to carry no discernible plot to speak of other than the disappearance, describing it to Interview as “just an existential riddle to baffle audiences around the world.”
It would be reasonable to assume that Antonioni didn’t set out with the intention of being so intentionally obtuse, but it wouldn’t be the first or last time the legend made a movie that even those closest to the production deemed impenetrable. L’Avventura is a difficult, challenging film, undoubtedly, but it is nonetheless a stunning artistic achievement.
