"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.
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.