David Barneby

L' Avventura is perhaps my favourite film of all time , I saw it at the Paris Pullman cinema . My sister and I were regulars at the Paris Pullman , living just a short walk away . I had spent the Summer of 1959 with a family in Italy doing an exchange with their elder son , I just adored Italy . In the July of 1960 , I met a beautiful Italian girl on a street in London who stopped me to ask for directions . I guided her to the address nearby , but her friends were away until after the next weekend . I offered to show her the sights of London over the next few days . We fell passionately in love . I likened her to Monica Vitti in the film L'Avventura . distance brought the romance to an end after two years , but we are still in contact , I'm 84 and she is 90 . The film is enormously atmospheric from Lea Massari's protective dad , Gabriele Ferzzetti the Italian playboy , their wealthy languid friends they join on the motor yacht , the sea , the island , the mystery , the search , Gabriele's fickleness in soon turning attention to Monica and then having a quickie at the plush hotel in Palermo . The film oozed Italian of the era . I have just watched L'Avventura again . Anna played by Lea Massari was a very troubled young woman . I'm guessing that her mother had died and her wealthy father was fanatically possessive . Anna wanted all the physical affection from her boyfriend lover Sandro , but she couldn't commit to him . Sandro felt confused , though loving and protective didn't know how to handle Anna's mood changes . I suspect her father would have opposed marriage to Sandro . Monica Vitti seemed to travel without luggage , but had several costume changes on the island . They traveled to Noto on the way to Palermo , I believe not in the same direction , the film incorporates some magnificent scenery .

I saw The Fox some years ago in the cinema and enjoyed it immensely . I am a fan of DH Lawrence and enjoy films made from his books , quiet films made about real people and intimate relationships . Two women living alone on a small isolated farm are surprised by the sudden arrival of a handsome , charming young man , whose presence stirs emotions like a fox in the chicken run . I have two horse loving ladyfriends who live on an isolated farm in the midwest of America . I too am a keen equestrian and would love to visit them , but I'm not certain what their relationship is , I envisage that my coming to stay might be like that of Keir Dullea in this beautiful film .

I actually hate this film !!! I have lived a number of years in a small Tuscan hill village where I was one of the only two foreign residents . I speak Italian fluently and was able to become friends with almost everyone in the village . I don't know what Bertolucci was thinking about when he made this film . Perhaps it was an expression of disgust on returning to Italy , to find Tuscany ruined by Chiantishire , where British and Americans have bought up beautiful Colonica farmhouses and play a sort of back to nature , let it all hang out in a rustic rural paradise . Apart from Liv Tyler , the whole cast appears to be a bunch of incongruous misfits . The artist sculptor seemed a phony able to afford a lovely place as a setting for his unsold works . The girl seems to be tossing and turn on her bed during her first night and crying , that seemed to me that she saw she had made a bad mistake in coming to stay with these people . If she had plans to write poetry in remembrance of her mother , this was not the peaceful and inspiring place to do it . I am not a moralist , there is a scene where the girl is raped by an American lad , that seemed to be added for some gratuitous sex . To anybody who knows and love Tuscany as I do , this film was offensive .

I saw this film in London when it first came out in 1961 and loved it . Those were early days for full nudity in the cinema , but it is a sweet and lovely film .