Antonioni’s 1960 film classic L'avventura to screen Tuesday in San Antonio

The Italian film classic L’Avventura is about the disappearance of a young woman (Lea Massari) during a boating trip in the Mediterranean, and the subsequent search for her. Credit: © 1960 Cino del Duca

Despite the major roadblocks it faced, many scholars consider Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’avventura (1960) one of the greatest films ever made.

San Antonio film buffs can see what the fuss is all about this week during a big-screen showing of the classic as party of Texas Public Radio’s Cinema Tuesdays series.

Conceived as a love triangle between three wealthy Italians, reality soon overcame the film’s original context. Stranded on a rat-infested beach in the Aeolian Islands, hobbled by bankruptcy, inhospitable weather, lack of transportation and a dwindling food supply, Antonioni’s film could have easily been scrapped in favor of a hot meal.

Nevertheless, a cast and crew of 50 managed to create something extraordinary: a film with a syntax defined by atypical pacing that favors tone and character development over conventional narrative constructs.

$12 and up, 7:30 pm.-10 p.m. Tuesday, June 2, Alamo Drafthouse Park North, 618 Northwest Loop 410, (210) 614-8977, tpr.org.

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