AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

Cleveronix A different way of telling a story

Salubfoto It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

MisterWhiplash This is a little-seen 1955 film by Michelangelo Antonioni, shot before he really got into the sort of directorial wonderment's of L'Avventura and The Eclipse in the 1960's. In fact one has to have seen several of his films, if not an outright fan of his work, to appreciate that it's one of his films.It's really a melodrama that is given a one-up from its soap-opera tendencies in its story by Antonioni's fluid camera style and the performances. There are little moments- again if you know his work a little bit- where you can see the inklings of what would come in the prime of his career as an art-house theater master. But if you're a newcomer to his work it works just as well, if not better, because of how it is told without pretense.Clelia (Eleonora Rossi Drago) is set to run a fashion salon. She becomes apart of a group of fairly well-off late-20, early-30-something women after one of the girls, Rosetta (Madeline Fischer) overdoses on pills. She becomes close to them, or close as she would want to be, and sees how close-knit they are - and, as girlfriends can tend to be, occasionally vicious in verbal ways, such as a scene on a beach that is shaky at best and volatile at worst - and also their romantic relationships.One of them is an affable architect, Cesare, who becomes closer to Momina (the older one of the group), and Clelia becomes attracted to Carlo, Cesare's assistant, which brings up some class issues as he's not, shall we say, as "well-off" as everybody else. Meanwhile, Rosetta tries to bring back some normalcy or just stability to her situation, but she falls for Lorenzo, a painter, who is already romantically involved with Nene, another of the girlfriends.Their confrontation about the Lorenzo situation, between Nene and Rosetta, with Nene mostly talking, is one of the more startling things about the film. Again, a lot of this could be construed as soap-opera stuff: she sleeps with him, he sleeps with her, she's jealous of her, she's spiteful of her, so on and so on. But that one scene, where Nene tells Rosetta off, is powerful because it's not as over the top as one might expect.It comes at a point in the film where there has already been some drama (again, the very wonderful beach scene, with its slight, subtle nod to the scenes at the rocky coast in L'Avventura), and it's a scene that gains its power from how simply Nene speaks about the affair and how she feels about it. It's moments like that, or when Rosetta walks with her lover on a street and they talk, that make it so worthwhile as drama. Antonioni casts the group very well, which helps, especially for Rosetta, who is played by Fischer as a fragile person but not so weak as to always be pushed around. And the male actors are surprising in their sensitivity to their roles.It's is one of the director's finer films, and a good introduction to his work if not by way of the sort of existential malaise of a La Notte or Red Desert then to the underrated attention to characters and emotions Antonioni can have when he's most focused, and in classic black and white no less shot by the great Gianni Di Venanzo. It's like Lifetime for mature people, and lovers of 1950's-set Italian cinema (or, to put it another way, like a "chick-flick" version of Fellini's I Vittelloni).

bobsgrock Michelangelo Antonioni's tale of postwar Italian women in the big city trying to make right their loves and their lives is a powerful and moving melodrama that does not rely on as much high-strung emotion scenes as you would initially think. The film begins with a captivating establishing shot of the skyline of Turin, a smaller Italian city that nevertheless is bustling and adapting to the incredible changes Italy experienced after the devastation of World War II. Now, women are at nearly the same level as men in terms of work placement and influence in the community. The connection to the audience is Clelia, who has moved to Turin from Rome to run a new salon. She immediately conflicts with two men, one who is the architect of the salon and the other a painter while falling for another, he being the architect's assistant. Soon, she has endeared herself to a small group of closely-knit friends who seem to know or at least suspect all of each other's secrets. Because she is an outsider, we are able to view this group in the same way she does. Some of these people we sympathize with such as Lorenzo the painter who is married, has a suicidal mistress who loves him deeply yet still remains terribly unhappy. What we are left with is a touching tale of women finding this new world in which they occupy terribly different and exciting. Fashion is a big part of this story, which Antonioni seems to use as a way of showing the shell in which these characters protect themselves to avoid true emotional commitment. Some will dislike the film for being somewhat soapy and relying too much on subplots that are irrelevant to the overall story, but here Antonioni is establishing themes and techniques he would use in later films that now define his style. Alienation, ambiguous emotions and indifferent attitudes are ever present here, which gives us a different flavor of a melodrama than American films tend towards. Besides the important themes Antonioni presents, his craft is also engaging, showcasing his rising talent that would make him a staple of world cinema.

tieman64 "Eros is sick." – Michelangelo Antonioni Unlike most of Antonioni's later work, "The Gilfriends" is a lush melodrama revolving around a large cast of bickering women. There's Clelia, who has returned to her hometown of Turin to set up a fashion salon, Rosetta, a suicidal woman, the sharp tongued Momita, and a slew of various other characters, extramarital lovers, painters, ceramics artists and handsome architects.In other words, "The Gilfriends" is the closest Antonioni's come to directing a giant soap opera, the film sporting an overly complicated narrative seemingly more suited to the sensibilities of a Minnelli or Douglas Sirk. Of course, this being Antonioni, no matter how many love triangles and extramarital affairs pop up, things never quite feel like a typical melodrama. Antonioni is less concerned about ringing drama from this nest of people, than he is in capturing the unsettled spiritual state of these characters. They're all busily urging one other to connect but are forever unable to do so themselves. Elsewhere Antonioni uses the shimmering poetry of Turin's landscape to convey the physical and emotional distances of his characters.Unlike the works of the neo-realists of the time, Antonioni's characters are neither proletarians or peasants, but characters of prosperity and privilege. "A man worrying about when he shall get his next meal does not think about love," Antonioni once said. Freed from the daily grind, his characters thus suffer a sort of toxic consciousness.And so luxuries like baths and furniture are contrasted with suicides in adjacent rooms, decor masks hidden anguish and perceived gaps in status fuel all kinds of inner turmoils, most of which are subtly translated by Antonioni's camera movements, which are expressive and elegant, gliding around scenes, constantly composing and recomposing figures, tracing erotic connections between different characters and groups.As with Antonioni's later films, not only is love Nothing, a gap which can not be filled, a desire which cannot be fulfilled, but also a supremely violent thing. Whether it's the fact that most abusers claim to love their victims or whole nations "civilizing" indigenous populations in the guise of "Christian love", love is oft linked with violence and violence always carries a sexual element. Consider the way the word f**k may mean either "make love to" or "do great violence to" or the way "I love you" and the possessive "I want you" seem to operate in the same space. For Antonioni, love can be an unethical thing, something destructive, irrational and imbalanced. Indeed, for philosopher Roland Barthes, "I love you" is itself a passive aggressive phrase with a discursive function of suppression. "I love you" is a linguistic act of violence, a force that leaves the target no breathing space or recourse to reason. Oft narcissistic, it is one's own ego that one loves when "in love". It is one's own ego made real on the imaginary level, as "to love" is "to wish to be loved".Love is a polymorphous perversion, a deception involving giving what one does not have. What is "truly sought" in love is thus something experienced as painfully or fearfully missing from one's life: some comforting sense of absolute belonging and acceptance. Love is selfish and love is power, its desire masking a more hidden desire: to gain some control over our own helplessness. Thus, true love, and this is what Antonioni's last two films explore, is to both want nothing of someone, and to give everything.In this regard, whilst this film may be thought of as being a kind of proto-feminist work about a working class girl who wants to "fit in" and "stop being looked down upon" by upper class Italians – and it is, Antonioni exudes remarkable sympathy for these women, who are all chasing their desires under the constraints imposed by Italian customs and the will of men - the story also masks something far darker. It is not that Clelia and the film's working class characters are shown to be outside the snobbish world of Italy's privileged, but that the mere act of narcissistically "being in love" envelopes them into this world, makes them part of that which they despise.8/10 – There's one scene at a beach which recalls the wordless landscapes of Antonioni's later films, but other than that, "The Girlfriends" is busier, more dialogue packed than Antonioni's later films.

g.vecino I have seen again "Le amiche" after many years and considered it the best film of Antonioni, far better than those other famous films of the inventor of the un-communication, describing the industrial society of 60's Italy. The film is clear and enjoyable, with a perfect script, surprisingly modern after 45 years; in fact, in some aspects, more modern than films about today's society, more mature, more adult. The problems of women's evolution in society, the machismo, the vanity and shallowness of men, the bitchiness and emptiness of some women, the conflict between love and career...are all subjects masterly described by Antonioni in this beautiful film. The actors are superb, specially the actresses, main characters of this story: Eleonara Rossi Drago, the leading lady, apart from being beautiful has class, and one wonder why she didn't became one of the most important stars in European cinema. The others, are simply splendid: Valentina Cortese, what a voice! and Madeleine Fisher and Ivonne Fourneaux.See this movie if you have the chance. I consider it one of the best Italian movies ever made.