Story of a Love Affair

Antonioni's first feature, and the first version of the idea that would build all of his later cinema. A wealthy industrialist hires a detective to look into his wife's past. The investigation turns up a relationship from years earlier, and the detective's questions bring the former lover back into her life. When the two meet again it emerges that they share a crime. The frame is film noir, but Antonioni inverts it: what matters is not whether a crime was committed but how long two people can stand being next to each other. The camera watches the waiting rather than the event, the empty avenues, the bridges in fog, the moments when nothing is said. Lucia Bosè plays the wife and Massimo Girotti the former lover. The film breaks from the neorealist current of post-war Italian cinema, taking the Milanese bourgeoisie instead of the working district, boredom instead of poverty. That break was argued over at the time. The right place to look for where Antonioni started. For anyone new to him, the pace is already slow here.