June 21, 2021

Hung out with a couple friends yesterday. It still feels novel and nice to be able to be with people indoors without wearing a mask. I've been doing pretty well mood-wise lately, and I wonder how much of that is coming out of lock-down. On the downside, I have been compulsively checking my phone more lately. Instagram. Email. Instagram. Email. Got to re-focus, and maybe just leave my cell on the other side of the room.  

We talked, my friends and I, about people's perceptions of their writing careers so far. We talked about a bunch of other things too, but I tried to keep bringing it back to that. I'm interested in figuring out what we all think we're really doing here. 

Mlog Time! 

L’AVVENTURA 

1960

Directed by: Michelangelo Antonioni

Written by: Michelangelo Antonioni, Elio Bartolini, Tonino Guerra

Watched: 6/20/21

Anna is listless in love. She’s in a long-distance relationship, which at one point, she couldn’t get enough of, but now she’s not sure she’s even interested. She’s behaving odd, nihilistic, maybe depressed. Her boyfriend comes back to Italy, and he, Anna, and Anna’s friend Claudia, go on a yacht trip with some of their rich friends. On this trip, they explore small rocky islands. When it’s time to get back on the boat, no one can find Anna. She lied earlier about seeing a shark, and she also told Sandro (the boyfriend) that she doesn’t want to be with him. It’s possible she fled, committed suicide, was murdered by Sandro. We never find out. For the rest of the movie, we’re with Claudia and Sandro, who have fallen for one another. Claudia goes from desperately wanting her friend to be found safe and being worried her friend will come back. Claudia doesn’t want to lose Sandro’s love, but even still, she finds him kissing another woman. She forgives him. 

This movie is gorgeous. The shots are glacial and velvety. It has a mesmerizing quality, and at 143 minutes feels very long. A long trance. There’s a small scene where a woman, who I think is a sex worker ultimately, is mobbed Beatles-esque by hundreds of men. She’s beautiful, has a small rip in her dress high on her thigh and says she’s a writer who writes by listening to the dead. She’s off to do a travel column. It made me laugh, and I don’t know if it had anything to do with the main plot of the movie. 

Rating: ★★★