La Notte

A day and a night in Milan. The writer Giovanni and his wife Lidia visit a dying friend in hospital, attend a book launch, and see the morning in at a rich industrialist's party. At every stop the distance between them becomes more visible. Michelangelo Antonioni directed. Marcello Mastroianni plays Giovanni, Jeanne Moreau plays Lidia and Monica Vitti plays Valentina, whom they meet at the party. The turning point is Lidia's admission that she no longer loves him. She had once chosen Giovanni over Tommaso, the friend who supported her. It won the Golden Bear at the 1961 Berlin Film Festival and the David di Donatello for Best Director. Bosley Crowther wrote that Antonioni develops his drama with a skill that is excitingly fertile, subtle and awesomely intuitive. Its place in the sequence is fixed: between L'Avventura in 1960 and L'Eclisse in 1962, the middle panel of the trilogy of incommunicability. Stanley Kubrick counted it among his favourite films, and it placed 52nd in the 2022 directors' poll. Who it is for: viewers who like Antonioni and films where the silences carry the meaning. Who it is not for: anyone waiting for something to happen. Across two hours the only event is the acknowledgement that a marriage is already over.