Word: antonioni
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Even the "ever-brilliant" Pauline Kael points out that Antonioni finds it possible to "accept the socialist criticism of society without endorsing the socialist remedy." Well, even Homer nods, and Miss Kael, one perceives, has her off days...
...defend Antonioni is impossible: his foes call him a bore, and all the talk in the world can't convince them they haven't been bored. On the other hand, those of us who enjoy his work ought to be able to explain why. Unfortunately, most favorable critics slaver with adjectives, like the Brattle brochure, which tells us that Le Amiche has "great visual elegance", that it is "social criticism of a Marxist order ... constructed from a mosaic of incidents trivial and tragic ... I'univers antonionien--arid, alienated, isolated...
...considering a film's style in concrete terms: both she and the Brattle arrive at an erroneous conclusion, and they are forced by their methods to couch their mistakes in terms so weightless that they would vitiate the gravity of any statement, however true it was. To say that Antonioni accepts the socialist criticism of society implies, I suppose, that he is for the poor and against the rich. I would argue (and I acquire thereby the advantage of being able to explain why a "socialist" doesn't advocate socialism) that Antonioni is not merely a critic of the rich...
...Amiche, (1955), as in his later films, Antonioni shows couples, nominally in love, who cannot communicate with each other privately. Only in public does their love have any kind of meaning. People see them together and gossip about their "relationship" when they are gone. But in private they are a failure. As Rosesta says: "Two people can't stay alone together without love...
...public, in society, their love is impossible. Antonioni underlines this with virtually every shot. In the film's most intricate scene nine "friends" go to the beach. Some of them steal off in pairs; others track them down and watch. Even the pretense of love withers under this constant observation...