Watch Le Amiche For Free

That was an excellent one.

One of my all time favorites.

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Michelangelo Antonioni seems to adjust his visual style with his subject matter. In the very slow 'Red Desert', which is more or less a dissertation on how industrial surroundings inspire fatigue, the camera (as I recall) moved rarely.Contrast 'Red Desert' with 'Le amiche', a nearly plot less gem. In doing so we begin to appreciate Antonioni's visual plan. In 'amiche', the camera is frequently moving; scenes typically begin with people passing through the frame and the cutting is brisk. The visuals perfectly match the overall theme of glib, upper-class, attractive adults stumbling into love and reacting to heartache. Just as the characters are free from the burdens the working class endure, so too Antonioni's camera work is free and lively.Visually, 'Le amiche' is striking; superb. The cast is very strong (and beautiful). The economic class consciousness is also a powerful subtext.Modern audiences may chuckle at how often (and nearly everywhere) the characters smoke cigarettes. They smoke at home, at their workplaces, restaurants, diners, fashion salons, hotel lobbies, outdoors and indoors. Was there any place where smoking was not allowed in 1950s Italy?

Michelangelo Antonioni's tale of postwar Italian women in the big city trying to make right their loves and their lives is a powerful and moving melodrama that does not rely on as much high-strung emotion scenes as you would initially think. The film begins with a captivating establishing shot of the skyline of Turin, a smaller Italian city that nevertheless is bustling and adapting to the incredible changes Italy experienced after the devastation of World War II. Now, women are at nearly the same level as men in terms of work placement and influence in the community. The connection to the audience is Clelia, who has moved to Turin from Rome to run a new salon. She immediately conflicts with two men, one who is the architect of the salon and the other a painter while falling for another, he being the architect's assistant. Soon, she has endeared herself to a small group of closely-knit friends who seem to know or at least suspect all of each other's secrets. Because she is an outsider, we are able to view this group in the same way she does. Some of these people we sympathize with such as Lorenzo the painter who is married, has a suicidal mistress who loves him deeply yet still remains terribly unhappy. What we are left with is a touching tale of women finding this new world in which they occupy terribly different and exciting. Fashion is a big part of this story, which Antonioni seems to use as a way of showing the shell in which these characters protect themselves to avoid true emotional commitment. Some will dislike the film for being somewhat soapy and relying too much on subplots that are irrelevant to the overall story, but here Antonioni is establishing themes and techniques he would use in later films that now define his style. Alienation, ambiguous emotions and indifferent attitudes are ever present here, which gives us a different flavor of a melodrama than American films tend towards. Besides the important themes Antonioni presents, his craft is also engaging, showcasing his rising talent that would make him a staple of world cinema.

"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.

I have seen again "Le amiche" after many years and considered it the best film of Antonioni, far better than those other famous films of the inventor of the un-communication, describing the industrial society of 60's Italy. The film is clear and enjoyable, with a perfect script, surprisingly modern after 45 years; in fact, in some aspects, more modern than films about today's society, more mature, more adult. The problems of women's evolution in society, the machismo, the vanity and shallowness of men, the bitchiness and emptiness of some women, the conflict between love and career...are all subjects masterly described by Antonioni in this beautiful film. The actors are superb, specially the actresses, main characters of this story: Eleonara Rossi Drago, the leading lady, apart from being beautiful has class, and one wonder why she didn't became one of the most important stars in European cinema. The others, are simply splendid: Valentina Cortese, what a voice! and Madeleine Fisher and Ivonne Fourneaux.See this movie if you have the chance. I consider it one of the best Italian movies ever made.