Disappearing Other and Self

Everett 2022-03-24 09:03:01

2021.8.12 Film Archive Xiaoxitian

Antonioni precisely touches on the crisis of modernity faced by individuals, which is embodied in the state of dissociation, indifference, anxiety, fear, and powerlessness presented by individuals in the context of intimacy. Wanting to possess but not being satisfied, wanting to ask the truth about love but willing to be deceived, avoidance of communication, long silences, tempered passions, disgust for self-indulgence in sentimental emotions. These emotional experiences above lead to a disappearance in this film. When a person is bizarrely evaporated from society, the middle-class response to this is to continue to seek new "adventures", that is, derailment. This is exactly what Baudelaire said about "discovering eternity in an instant", a boring leisure life, God no longer exists, and can only rely on lust to drive the existence of life, and the object of lust is no longer a fixed and unique object, only the other full of uncertainty. So, for Sandro and Claudia, Anna's whereabouts are no longer important, what matters is their own whereabouts. Where should they go, in the process of searching for Anna, they themselves disappeared, including their love for Anna in the past, because they went mad because they searched endlessly for the truth and only found that "nothingness" is the real truth, Because the world is completely unknowable, the only thing we know is nothing.

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Extended Reading
  • Sabrina 2022-03-26 09:01:10

    It is really wonderful to use the scene to reveal the mood of the characters. First, the desert island shows alienation, then the hotel shows confusion, then the suburbs show desire, the countryside shows anxiety, and the clock tower implies fear. The last is the subversion and conclusion of everything. Where has Anna gone? swallowed by love.

  • Palma 2022-03-25 09:01:15

    The dull and astringent visual effects, the broken narrative logic, together with the lines that are so small that they do not confront each other in dialogue, and the erratic eyes during sex, make the audience (me) consciously and forced to have lethal ennui of existence. Then he quickly fell into a state of nothingness and anxiety, and began to think about the metaphysical and ultimate life problem of "existence". Anton realizes the visual images that can only exist in his mind, and he loves Kojima the most, which is a bit surreal.

L'Avventura quotes

  • Claudia: It's absurd.

    Sandro: Good. All the better if it is absurd. It means we can't do anything about it. Understand?

  • Claudia: To think that you must have told Anna these same things--I don't know, how many times.

    Sandro: Let's say I did. I was as earnest with her as I am now with you.