Michelangelo Antonioni
Cronaca di un amore

It would be predictable to start a review of any film by any major Italian or foreign director by saying that the said work is complex and difficult to complete without hitting historic lows from the very start. But above all, it would be just another way to justify one's incompetencies in advance and thus be able to counter any criticisms with a "I told you so." Yet, in my case, I can't help but begin with this sort of preamble: judging a film by Michelangelo Antonioni is indeed a daunting task. The components that make the task complex are numerous, considering the reverential fear toward a man who has been behind the scenes of Italian cinema for years, buried under avalanches of international awards and recognitions and who collaborated with great names from Roberto Rossellini in "Un pilota ritorna" to Federico Fellini in "Lo sceicco bianco." Encountering him in the guise of a beginner with "Cronaca di un amore" (1950) does not ease the task, perhaps insisting on the false belief that a debut work is easy to analyze and understand because the author is still in an embryonic phase, but quite the contrary, it multiplies it. There is nothing left to do but to proceed in order to untangle the skein and arrive at a valid critical conclusion. With this, I end my introduction, and, wanting to quote F. Dostoevsky, "I also perfectly agree that it is superfluous, but since it’s already written, let's leave it be. And now to work."

A strange request arrives at a Milanese detective agency: the wealthy industrialist Enrico Fontana requests investigations on his wife, but not regarding her present, rather her past. The reason is soon explained: the man married his Paola shortly after their engagement and wants to know who she really was before becoming his wife. The investigations start from a high school in Ferrara, the woman's birthplace, and there don't seem to be major mysteries. Everyone remembers Paola for her extraordinary beauty and the consequently large number of suitors. The investigator Carloni continues to collect traces of Paola and visits an old friend of hers, Matilde, pretending to be an acquaintance of her father. The visit to the latter's house is a crucial point: truly useful is her companion who informs Carloni that Paola had an affair with Guido, the fiancé of another friend of hers, Giovanna, and after the latter's death, Paola had fled Ferrara in a hurry, while Matilde dismisses him saying she can't be helpful as she lost contact with her friend long ago, but as soon as Carloni leaves the house, Matilde starts writing a letter: "Dear Guido..."

Meanwhile, in Milan, Paola resumes meeting Guido, who informs her that a man is tailing them. The sordid secret of the two lovers thus begins to emerge: Giovanna died falling down the elevator shaft in the presence of her fiancé and friend. Carloni too learns of the fact and immediately labels it as a crime. The lovers are increasingly frightened by the shadow of their stalker, by the fear of the police and jail, even though they didn't push Giovanna, but soon Paola comes to know the truth. Drunk with alcohol, her husband confides in her that he hired a detective to watch her. The woman begins to develop feelings of anger towards her spouse and talks about it with Guido. This last scene is the crux of the second part: Guido admits he saw Giovanna unconsciously about to throw herself into the void but did not warn her, while Paola becomes the promoter of a plan to kill her husband. However, the plan will prove useless. Carloni informs Fontana of his wife's adulterous affair, and shaken by the news, he dies in a car accident. The episode will forever separate the lovers.

The historical importance of Antonioni's first feature film is evident. Lietta Tornabuoni defined it as a detective love story, a cinematic antinovel, and indeed what has been said so far is enough to understand the essence of this debut: an implicit controversy or, if preferred, the will to bring a breath of fresh air to Italian cinema where neorealism had said everything it had to say, had run out. Antonioni's new world is that of the Italian upper middle class made of fashion shows, well-dressed women, bored spouses, husbands too busy ensuring their slice of cake in the full economic boom. The popular settings, the sad scenes of rundown provinces are set aside and the camera enters a small golden cosmos full of vices and hysteria, that of the Italian bourgeoisie of the second half of the 20th century, if we recall the marginal character of a wealthy lady who talks to a little dog as if she were referring to a child. The director penetrates the story with calm and effective slowness, not by chance the viewer meets the character of Paola after about a quarter of an hour from the beginning.

But the aspect of vital importance remains intrinsic to the plot itself: Paola and Guido pursue their dream of love characterized by a continuous tension towards happiness, together obviously. However, their destiny can only be realized through murder, first Giovanna's, then Enrico's, but both deaths are accidental (despite in the second case the lovers had planned Fontana's murder) and both only end up dividing them. Antonioni delves into the characters’ souls to reveal the conscience as the main obstacle to happiness, somehow the lovers themselves are the obstacle to their own goal. The splendid Lucia Bosè, who masterfully plays the protagonist, is akin to one of the many female characters in Ibsen's theater, that is, women frustrated in the continuous pursuit of escape, though lacking the titanism that instead distinguishes the heroines of the Norwegian author. In contrast to Paola's fragile nature, there is the disillusionment of Massimo Girotti-Guido, a humble car salesman (incidentally incompetent in his job, as learned during a negotiation with Enrico Fontana himself) who will definitively end the story and leaves in conclusion with his departure the sad message of an eternal condemnation for man to an imperfect or absent happiness.