La Notte

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After directing a tragic movie ‘Il Grido’ in 1957 based on sad demise of man woman relationship in the contemporary society, legendary Italian director ‘Michelangelo Antonio’ went onto comment further on similar scenario in his another remarkable movie ‘La Notte’ directed in 1961 with main leads played by Marcello Mastroianni (remember Fellini’s ‘8 ½’, ‘La Dolce Vita’), Jeanne Moreau, Monica Vitti and Bernhard Wicki. The movie raises numerous questions on the limits and do’s and don’ts in a man woman relationship while dealing with the concept delicately opening everything layer by layer.

‘La Notte’ begins with Giovanni Pontano who is a famous writer in Milan and his wife Lydia visiting their terminally ill old friend Tommaso Garani in a hospital. The short visit gives an indication about the obvious age old inclination of Tommaso Garani for Giovanni’s wife Lydia. In the hospital the couple also encounters a strange but very beautiful and young, female patient admitted next to Tommaso’s room. The young female drags Giovanni into her room and indulges him in a violent sexual intercourse just when the nurses enter and beat her up. Dazzled by the girl’s strange reaction, Giovanni narrates the entire incident to Lydia including how he felt helpless reacting in that situation. Thereafter, Giovanni goes to a party for the release of his latest book and his wife visits the place where she lived many years ago. Lydia calls Giovanni from the place and tells him to pick her up. The incident depicts the mutual understanding and beauty of their relationship even after so many years of their being together. In the night, they go to a night-club, and later to a party in the mansion of the tycoon Mr. Gherardini. Along the night, Giovanni flirts with Valentina Gherardini, the daughter of the host, and then he receives a proposal to work for him in the area of communication and write the history of his company. Lydia observes her husband getting fascinated towards the lonely gal in the party and also kissing her subsequently. This disturbs Lydia and she goes onto flirting with a playboy Roberto who seems interested in her from the beginning. Roberto begins advancing towards her but she resists him eventually. In the meanwhile, Valentina recites her poetry to Giovanni and also confesses about her loneliness. Both of them are further drawn to each other as intellectual companions. Lydia returns to the party and indulges in a heart to heart conversation with Valentina when Giovanni arrives and both of them decide to return home.

Giovanni unable to conceal his feelings for Valentina even in front of Lydia, bids her goodbye. After what happened at the party, Giovanni tells Lydia about the offer he received from Valentina’s father. Lydia also discloses Giovanni about Tommaso’s intentions for her since the very beginning and how he used to make her feel precious. She also admits about her die hard feelings for Giovanni since the day she knew him also including how they have changed since what happened at the party. Giovanni apologizes her and begins kissing and making love to her in atonement. The movie ends with both of them making love on the ground as if nothing else is left between them.

The movie attempts to explore several questions about man woman relationship. Is it immoral to love somebody? And is it immoral to love somebody knowing that you are married or belong to somebody else? If it is immoral to love so is it moral to resist love when it comes to you itself? Is it feasible to justify love and attraction? Is it possible to love two people at one time? Is it possible to be attracted towards somebody knowing that your attraction is going to create ripples in your own personal life? Are we there to form new relationships or are we there to confine them? What happens when bonding occurs naturally? How far do man and woman have the right to indulge in each other’s life? How far are they responsible for each other? Who should decide the limits? And what should be done if the limits are crossed? What should be the punishment? And who should decide it? The director leaves it to the viewer to interpret the movie and answer these questions.

The greatest harm done to human civilization has been structuring love and building an empire of other worthless structures around it. Love should not be structured and if structured it doesn’t remain love. It begins to rot and emanate odors when you try and confine it accordingly. Love is not an entity. It is a beautiful immense canvass on which one can paint anything and anybody he likes. Love can never be immoral. It is always beautiful no matter who loves and whom he loves. You cannot time it. And you cannot decide it too. One cannot force it though one may try to demolish it. Love is always just since it originates from somewhere which is beyond the approach of human understanding. So one cannot justify it, though one may try to mar it using certain words.

Another greatest harm done has been deciding man woman relationship on the basis of morality and limiting it by the institution of marriage. The modern civilizations have reduced the naturally polygamous (or –androus) humans into a monogamous institution further locking it with a code of morality. If somebody tries break the code he is labeled as immoral. Things have been simplified to the limit. Man has been made the puppet of moral schools of the society. Boundaries have been pre-determined. And human bondings have already been pre-decided and pre-labelled using very few words. Any possibility of emergence of a new form of relationship has been theoretically and practically eliminated by the decision makers.

The movie depicts how a relationship having deeper intellectual and spiritual overtones undergoes a radical diminution to a purely physical level when the monogamous code is unknowingly deceived by the people involved. The movie demonstrates how easier it has become to pull apart the threads of human relationships. This is the consequence of simplifying the intricate matters based upon very subtle and elusive human understanding and mutual attraction merely to the level of concrete and suitable justification. This is the result of civilizing everything along the way without foreseeing the violent consequences ahead.

La Notte is a landmark creation in the history of Italian as well as world cinema and is neo-realism at its best. The culmination of the movie in a physical intercourse between the two protagonists reminds me of similar ending in a Bengali movie ‘Charulata’ based upon the marital complacency in the life of a lonely housewife, another masterpiece of world cinema directed by Satyajit Ray, both suggesting that the things cannot be mended from now on. ‘La Notte’ along with ‘Il Grido’ and ‘Il Deserto Rosso’, all directed by Michelangelo Antonio, would remain notable in the history of cinema to comment upon very significant theme of man woman relationship in the contemporary society.