Il Grido (“Outcry”)
Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni
Written by Michelangelo Antonioni, Elio Bartolini, and Ennio de Concini
1957/Italy/USA
SpA Cinematografica/Robert Alexander Productions
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
[box] “Why do people have to be this lonely? What’s the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?” ― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart[/box]
Antonioni makes a bleak film about pain. I like it more every time I see it.
As the movie opens, Irma (Alida Valli) is sitting in a lawyer’s office. He tells her her husband died in Sidney, Australia. She doesn’t seem particularly upset by the news. She returns back to the village where she lives with Aldo (Steve Cochran), the father of her seven-year-old daughter and lets him know. His reaction is “Great! Now we can get married.” Then Irma drops her bombshell. She says she should have told him long ago there is someone else and they are through.
Nothing Aldo can say will persuade her to change her mind. He angrily grabs their daughter and takes off. He drifts aimlessly in a haze of grief and numbness as his material situation deteriorates. Along the way, he has one empty relationship after another. With Betsy Blair as Aldo’s ex-girlfriend.
This is a sad one but the stark, beautiful images help a lot. So does the career topping performance by Cochran. I find this very moving and am engrossed throughout. Recommended.
Trailer (no subtitles)
