Where Has All the Love Gone?

La Notte: Antonioni, 1961

From January 29th

I remember thinking–”I wonder how the script looked?” –I mean, it’s all actions with little dialogue. Atrocious camera movements. Beautiful. A bleak landscape. Bleak gray. The photography narrates to a level that is astounding. Agressive, voracious, indifferent, sharp and merciless. All with a light and constant rhytm. Excellent.

I became very impressed by the fact that I actually enjoyed the film. It was slow, years ago I wouldve fallen asleep. Or perhaps I wouldve recognized its greatness despite being bored and without really liking it. But it hit me. I felt it touch a nerve of truth that was terribly clear and true.

You could feel emptiness pouring empty all over the screen. A clinical, unflinching meditation on decadence, the decadence of love. It reminds me of a Francis Bacon painting. Still rhythm. Still pacing. Everything at a distance. No explanations. No opportunity to get close. Take it or leave it. For example, there were few close-ups. No empathy. No identification. A rather observational hint in the viewpoint, a harsh and solid distance. The film never presumes to judge its subject matter. It is atrocious and sterile from the beginning to the end. And the fact that this film is a love story makes it even more incredible to look at. It captures a terrible feeling: Love lost. Desolation. Love for God’s sake. Love stepped on and beat. Love desolate, love oblitterated, love emptied.

Tarkovsky, speaking about The Mirror, said that a work of art is organic, that it’s rules are organic and come only from its own self. This film is a bleak and singular animal that does just this. You can feel a certain pride and resolution from beginning to end. Form follows function.