Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni shot a series of films exploring the psychological torment of his bourgeois protagonists. In spite of the wealth and security they established, they had no idea what they wanted in life or what they were supposed to do. In spite of busy social lives, they found it impossible to truly connect with other people. LA NOTTE, from 1961, is one of these, and I think it's the very best of them.As the film opens, one morning in Milano, married couple Giovanni (Marcello Mastroianni) and Lidia (Jeanne Moreau) visit their friend Tomasso (Bernhard Wicki) in the hospital as he lays dying. Lidia is clearly shaken by the experience and, after Giovanni leaves for an appearance to promote his new book, the camera tracks Lidia through a long, aimless walk around Milano as she processes her thoughts. Here Antonioni (anticipating his later film Il Deserto Rosso) shows the drastically changing face of Milano in the postwar construction boom, and the appearance of new tech gadgetry in everyday life, as just one more way people can feel they have nothing certain they can hold on to in this world.Giovanni and Lidia, while never outright squabbling, have clearly grown cold towards each other. Gradually one begins to wonder if there is any life left in their marriage whatsoever. Things come to a head, however, when Giovanni and Lidia go that evening to a party at a rich industrialist's villa, and Antonioni's favourite actress Monica Vitti appears. Vitti's role as a foil to Giovanni and Lidia is powerful and moving, but I think its precise nature should be left unsaid here, as it's better audiences aren't spoiled first.A mere description of the plot might seem like nothing happens in this film besides bored people talking and yet another mid-century European cinematic tale of adultery. But LA NOTTE is a film of incredible visual poetry, almost like the work of Andrei Tarkovsky. Even scenes that evoke the characters' boredom are shot as such beautiful tableaux that the viewer is enraptured. Antonioni often shoots his characters reflected in mirrors and the like, and there is some cinematic legerdemain here that just makes you go "wow".Appearing in Antonioni's body of work between two similar films that are often considered a trilogy, LA NOTTE has often got less buzz than its predecessor L'AVVENTURA, with its daring plot twist, or its successor L'ECLISSE with its chic Monica Vitti-Alain Delon love affair. But I think that in terms of the picture-perfect visuals and elegant pacing, LA NOTTE deserves every bit as much praise as those other two classic films.

A day in the life of an unfaithful married couple and their steadily deteriorating relationship.Bosley Crowther had some kind words for the film, which also won a slew of awards: "Too sensitive and subtle for apt description are his pictorial fashionings of a social atmosphere, a rarefied intellectual climate, a psychologically stultifying milieu—and his haunting evocations within them of individual symbolisms and displays of mental and emotional aberrations. Even boredom is made interesting by him. There is, for instance, a sequence in which a sudden downpour turns a listless garden party into a riot of foolish revelry, exposing the lack of stimulation before nature takes a flagellating hand. Or there's a shot of the crumpled wife leaning against a glass wall looking out into the rain that tells in a flash of all her ennui, desolation and despair." To me, it all comes down to the cinematography. The casting of Jeanne Moreau and Monica Vitti was important, but the way we get that nice, stark and defined black and white is what I love to see. At a time the Americans had largely switched to color, some of the best in Europe were able to push black and white to the next level.

Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni (L'Avventura, L'Eclisse, Blowup), this entry in the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die book is like many of the other entries was an Italian film I hadn't heard of before, but was willing to try because of the recommendation. Basically set in Milan, distinguished and successful writer Giovanni Pontano (La Dolce Vita's Marcello Mastroianni) and his beautiful wife Lidia (Jules et Jim's Jeanne Moreau) visit their friend Tommaso Garani (Bernhard Wicki) who is dying of a terminal illness and unable to hide his severe pain, Tommaso praises his the release of Giovanni's new book La Stagione (The Season), Lidia leaves the room shaken by the dying man, Giovanni stays a bit longer, and as he leaves the room a sick and uninhibited young woman attempts to seduce him before nurses interrupt. Giovanni does not comfort his crying wife outside, and Lidia dismisses the incident with the young woman, so they attend a party celebrating the new book release, it has been well received and Giovanni signs copies with his wife looking on from a distance, she eventually runs off, still devastated by Tommaso's condition, and wanders the streets of Milan, including where she and her husband became newlyweds. Back at their apartment Giovanni hears from his wife, there is no sentimental value as he picks her up from their old neighbourhood, going to a nightclub they watch a mesmerising and seductive performance by a female dancer and have some small talk, and eventually they move on to a swanky party thrown by millionaire businessman Mr. Gherardini (Vincenzo Corbella). At the party while Giovanni socialises Lidia walks around in boredom, Giovanni next meets the host's lively and charming daughter Valentina Gherardini (L'Avventura's Monica Vitti), they flirt and play a game together that gathers others to see a competition, and later alone together they share a kiss together, with Lidia looking on from above. Giovanni is next offered an executive position by Mr. Gherardini with his company to write the firm's history, he is reluctant but leaves the offer open, he doesn't need the money because of Lidia's family wealth and his own publishing earnings, meanwhile Lidia finds out from the hospital by telephone Tommaso has died, overwhelmed by grief she watches the party guests enjoying themselves, sitting alone Giovanni does walk over to her, she does not tell of the death, and he soon leaves her alone to follow after Valentina. Lidia gets up and appears to enjoy the band music, and accepts a dance from a man named Roberto (Giorgio Negro), then moments later it rains, some guests but many jump into the near swimming pool, Roberto stops Lidia from doing the same and takes her in his car, she enjoys his company and conversation, but she turns away and apologises when he is about to kiss her. Back at the party Giovanni finds Valentina again, she knows he is married and instructs him to spend the rest of the evening with his wife, he reveals to her he is having a life "crisis", while they return the guests Lidia and Roberto also return from their drive, Giovanni is annoyed by her behaviour, Valentina is confronted by Lidia as she dries off in her room, Giovanni overhears them talking and his wife telling that she feels like dying and ending her life of agony, noticing Giovanni she does tell him she is not jealous of his playing around, the couple leave the party as morning approaches and the band still playing. As the walk together across Gherardini's private golf course Giovanni tells he will turn down the job offer and Lidia finally tells of Tommaso's death, she also tells that Tomasso had affection for her, but she chose Giovanni because she loved him, she says she feels like dying because she no longer loves him, he recognises their marriage is failing and says that he still loves her, then she pulls out a letter that he wrote before they were married and reads it aloud. Giovanni embraces and kisses his wife, but Lidia resists and says that she no longer loves him and she knows he does not love her, but he is unable to endorse his failure, so he continues to make love to her in the golf course sand trap under the grey morning sky. The title says it all, it is one night and the study of a marriage for a couple as their love crumbles and by the end disintegrates, despite apparently loathing their parts Mastroianni as the uninspired novelist and Moreau as the ignored wife do give great performances, I agree it is a little dated, but I can see the similarities and inspiration for Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, and it is a most interesting and watchable drama. Very good!

I didn't have a chance to watch the movie until this year, at the Berlin International Film Festival. They had it in their Retrospective. A very "real" life picture. Therefor of course there is not that much going on in plot terms. But that shouldn't cloud your judgment of the movie. This is very complex stuff, depicting marriage and the psychology of it or where it can lead.Of course the male view of things dominate, but you still get a feeling of both genders. It's a subtle approach and therefor will most likely not be everyones cup of tea. Still if you let yourself dive into the story and let the actors carry you through, you will see a very good movie.