For me this is one of the 10 best films ever made.
It is certainly an art film for the dedicated appreciater of film, not a film at all for the consumer of Hollywood entertainment. It is a film that makes you think, as you can see from the numerous long comments; a film in which the viewer has to work to appreciate as a participant.
Antonioni's films are slow,langorous, visual, driven neither by plot nor by character, but by the unfolding revelation of the perception of our situation itself. In this they are unique, and represent a challenge to the viewer, to drop the expectations of fantasy gratification that film usually exploits. If the viewer can lose the speed of modern life and just flow along with the film, much deeper rewards are to be found here, as attested by the many posted reviews.
When sound was added to film, many filmmakers were worried that the artistic value of film as visual motion would be lost to the complexities of text, which has largely been the case. Antonioni's films, however, have explored and deepened the visual aspect of film as a means for making profound communications. The dialogue doesn't, for the most part, "tell" anything about the message, but is merely a supporting aspect of the visual metaphor. His last film, the superb "Beyond the Clouds", is more talky and gives some verbal clues about Antonioni's world view.
I feel that Antonioni's films are artistic and spiritual landmarks of cinema; but of all his films I have seen, this is the most accessible, with the most conventional presentation, plot, etc.
The rest of this includes my interpretation of the film and might include spoilers.
A lot of the comments here are excellent. I will just add that for me, the film is about our attempt to observe and understand our world through our placement of our attention. The photographer is just us as the observer; his professional work reflects our customary perception of the world through pre-conception, kitsch, convention. It is meaningless, exploitive, alienating, even cruel.
On the other hand, when he observes reality rather than artificiality, when he turns up the intensity and magnification until things are no longer recognizable, he is seeing the essence of things and not his conceptual projections. He discovers a crime- for me this murder is a metaphor for the murder of real perception, along with real feeling, by a society which alienates us from our own natural ability to see things as they are.
From here, the film goes even deeper into the meaning of this crime, and how one can live with it. Yet the film never gets into any obvious deep speculations; it makes its point completely in the domain of visual images and metaphors that also serve as plot devices, until the enigmatic conclusion of the film.
Like any great work of art, the meaning of the film lies in the symbols and metaphors and cannot be reduced to words; the success of the film lies in the tremendous emotional impact it has on its viewers who probably often, like myself the first time I saw it, don't even realize it has such deep levels to it. Antonioni has constructed something that has a life of its own, with the ability to reflect profound meanings that arise from an interaction of the film and the viewer.
It is certainly an art film for the dedicated appreciater of film, not a film at all for the consumer of Hollywood entertainment. It is a film that makes you think, as you can see from the numerous long comments; a film in which the viewer has to work to appreciate as a participant.
Antonioni's films are slow,langorous, visual, driven neither by plot nor by character, but by the unfolding revelation of the perception of our situation itself. In this they are unique, and represent a challenge to the viewer, to drop the expectations of fantasy gratification that film usually exploits. If the viewer can lose the speed of modern life and just flow along with the film, much deeper rewards are to be found here, as attested by the many posted reviews.
When sound was added to film, many filmmakers were worried that the artistic value of film as visual motion would be lost to the complexities of text, which has largely been the case. Antonioni's films, however, have explored and deepened the visual aspect of film as a means for making profound communications. The dialogue doesn't, for the most part, "tell" anything about the message, but is merely a supporting aspect of the visual metaphor. His last film, the superb "Beyond the Clouds", is more talky and gives some verbal clues about Antonioni's world view.
I feel that Antonioni's films are artistic and spiritual landmarks of cinema; but of all his films I have seen, this is the most accessible, with the most conventional presentation, plot, etc.
The rest of this includes my interpretation of the film and might include spoilers.
A lot of the comments here are excellent. I will just add that for me, the film is about our attempt to observe and understand our world through our placement of our attention. The photographer is just us as the observer; his professional work reflects our customary perception of the world through pre-conception, kitsch, convention. It is meaningless, exploitive, alienating, even cruel.
On the other hand, when he observes reality rather than artificiality, when he turns up the intensity and magnification until things are no longer recognizable, he is seeing the essence of things and not his conceptual projections. He discovers a crime- for me this murder is a metaphor for the murder of real perception, along with real feeling, by a society which alienates us from our own natural ability to see things as they are.
From here, the film goes even deeper into the meaning of this crime, and how one can live with it. Yet the film never gets into any obvious deep speculations; it makes its point completely in the domain of visual images and metaphors that also serve as plot devices, until the enigmatic conclusion of the film.
Like any great work of art, the meaning of the film lies in the symbols and metaphors and cannot be reduced to words; the success of the film lies in the tremendous emotional impact it has on its viewers who probably often, like myself the first time I saw it, don't even realize it has such deep levels to it. Antonioni has constructed something that has a life of its own, with the ability to reflect profound meanings that arise from an interaction of the film and the viewer.