1960 / Michaelangelo Antonioni > It’s not quite Last Year at Marienbad, but L’avventura has the kind of melodic feel to its foundation that makes you want to look past any faults. But compared to La Dolce Vita (released in the same year) where Marcello was grounded in reality while all those around him floated about, nobody in this first part of the Antonioni’s alienation trilogy had that kind of hook. I had a hard time worrying about characters who often went out of their way to show (and sometimes tell) us that they didn’t have to care about the same things as the masses. If the film is meant to symbolize that money (and the lifestyle it brings) can still lead to an empty life, I’m not sold. Because these characters couldn’t garner my sympathy, I couldn’t, subsequently, care about what happened to and around them. For others with different value systems and life experiences, this may work. It’s a film you have to feel in your gut or it just won’t have a payoff.