La Notte
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Movie Reviews of La Notte
Movie Review: "Who wrote that?"
Summary: 3 Stars
"La Notte" (1961) tells of the unraveling marriage between a semi-successful author (Marcello Mastroianni) and his wealthy wife (Jeanne Moreau). The couple no longer communicates, and we see their growing unhappiness as a single day unfolds. Nothing particularly dramatic occurs, aside from the kind of daily events that slowly drain a decaying marriage. The couple visits a dying friend, goes to a club, and ends the evening at a party. The result is a realistic look at what happens in many marriages as love dies and resentments mount. Unfortunately, such a mundane examination of alienation makes for rather dull watching.
I don't mind slow-moving foreign films, but "La Notte" was also uninteresting and suprisingly shallow. Director Michelangelo Antonioni has explored the topic of alienation and the distance that forms between even intimate couples much better in other movies, notably the superb "L'avventura" (1960). I was really hoping to love "La Notte" considering the excellence of "L'avventura;" these two movies, along with "L'eclisse," form Antonioni's trilogy centering on the theme of "incommunicability" or isolation. However, I simply didn't care what happened to the characters - it didn't matter to me whether they would split or make their relationship work. Although the characters and situations were realistic, the exploration of their issues could have delved far deeper.
On the positive side, "La Notte" is very well acted, with Moreau effectively conveying ennui and dissatisfaction mixed with sensuality. She looks gorgeous and the fashions of the period really suit her. The movie also captures early 1960s Italy. In particular, the ending party scene evokes the time and place well and is reminiscent of other Italian movies of the time, such as Fellini's "8½" and "La Dolce Vita." Seeing the partygoers wildly swimming and frolicking in the rain is quite beautiful, although not enough to make this movie merit four stars. The movie is worth a look, though, for fans of Italian cinema or Antonioni.
Movie Review: The weakest entry in the Antonioni 'trilogy'
Summary: 3 Stars
A fine film, but it loses a star for being sandwiched between two far greater ones in Antonioni's so-called trilogy of the early 1960s. L'Avventura is the densest of the three, a tour de force of concentrated imagery and thematic development, while L'Eclisse is exciting for so thoroughly discarding all conventional narrative techniques, constantly disorientating the viewer in space. By comparions, La Notte is well-made but tame. Except perhaps for Jeanne Moreau's brief odyssey around town, the film's meanings are all delivered through dialogue, and the heavy-handed message of how all marriages seem destined to end in boredom could have been a mere subplot in L'Avventura. And while the other two films of the trilogy began and ended in bravura sequences, the opening of La Notte (the hospital sequence) is tiresome and borderline laughable, while the ending--relying on Jeanne Moreau reading a very long romantic letter from her husband, who doesn't even recognise it--is nearly as ridiculous. Only Monica Vitti livens things up a bit, and her character seems as exasperated as I was by the husband's hesitant stab at philandering.Movie Review: DVD Unwatchable
Summary: 3 Stars
I agree with those reviewers who find this DVD almost unwatchable. For one thing, it is formatted badly and does not fill up the screen of a plasma TV, so you have to watch it on 4:3 ZOOM 1. This is annoying enough, but the washed-out image, the tiny squiggly lines all over the screen, the jumping -- for those who love Antonioni it's a disaster.
Fox Lorber obviously doesn't care enough to let the film be seen at its best. Perhaps someday Criterion will rescue it -- though Criterion's DVD of L'ECLISSE, a far better film, was full of flutter, which finally decided me not to pay the $30 for the DVD.
Thank God Warner Home Video did an almost perfect job on BLOWUP. If not for that, the films of this great master of imagery would be almost completely sabotaged by the DVD producers.
Movie Review: A bit light
Summary: 2 Stars
I guess I was expecting a whole lot more, considering Jeanne Moreau and Marcello Mastroianni were the stars of the film. I actually didn't make it through the whole film. I got bored, because nothing seemed to happen throughout the movie.