With friends like these… Le Amiche (1955), BFI

Another dip into Antonioni’s back catalogue and a most surprising, actually quite shocking film. Being more used to the director’s work in which very little can be said to be absolutely certain and in which interpretation is a vital part of the narrative, this film is both more defined in both story and morality. The “friends” in Le Amiche are attached to each other in the most fragile of ways and even love is measured against career opportunity or even pain. When one of the characters asks another why she still loves him she can only respond by saying maybe it’s because he hurts her so much…

This is also one of Antonioni’s most populated films with ten main characters all representing a variety of “friendships” – lovers, marriages of convenience, colleagues, work friends and, people who make you feel better for all the wrong reasons. Still… this world is one we all recognise.

The central character is Clelia (Eleonora Rossi Drago) has come from Rome to open a fashion boutique in her native Turin. As she gets ready in her hotel room, an attempted suicide is uncovered in the neighbouring room, a young woman, Rosetta (Madeleine Fischer) all dressed up with nowhere to go with her broken heart. One of Rosetta’s friends arrives, Momina (Yvonne Furneaux) who carries an air of bourgeoise authority even when she finally discovers what has happened to her friend. Soon she co-opts Clelia into investigating the incident and the latter, being far warmer, is more than willing to help.

Eleonora Rossi Drago and Madeleine Fischer

It’s fascinating to see Clelia at work when she finds the shop far from ready for its opening, whilst she’s met by indifference and sexual curiosity from the workmen – those who aren’t off sick that is – she stands up for herself and insists on speaking to the architect’s assistant, Carlo (Ettore Manni),  who she gets to call his boss in. When Cesare the architect (Franco Fabrizi) arrives, she holds him to agreed timelines and budget in spite of his attempts to gaslight and distract; familiar scenes for anyone who’s commissioned building work but Clelia has strength of character as well as project management discipline.

Clelia joins Momina and her clique on a day out meeting Nene (Valentina Cortese) an artist with more talent than her feckless husband Lorenzo (Gabriele Ferzetti who will later do more of the same in L’Avventura) who painted a portrait of the unfortunate Rosetta who, it transpires, fell in love with him and couldn’t face rejection.

Yvonne Furneaux, Eleonora Rossi Drago Anna Maria Pancani and Valentina Cortese

There’s a lively blonde Mariella (Anna Maria Pancani) who can have all the ones other can’t have (there’s always a Smiths reference…) and who cruelly jokes about Rosetta not even being good enough to finish even the simplest of suicides… Alpha Momina (a new band name right there) slaps her more acting more for affect than in anger and Rosetta chides her for being a hypocrite… you get the feeling that this demi-monde is too tough.

Clelia takes care of Rosetta though and employs her at her salon and she starts to gain in confidence. There are string class lines in this film and Carlo is surprised that Clelia has appointed someone who, literally, doesn’t need to work – he muses on the motivations of someone in that almost unimaginable position (nowadays, as then, they probably end up in finance or politics…).

Gabriele Ferzetti and Valentina Cortese

Meanwhile, Lorenzo becomes more attracted to the young woman, especially after he learns that Nene has been invited to be blatantly more successful than him in New York… is he genuine or is he just trying to reassert his manly mojo? Momina, for whom affairs are like seeing the hairdresser, advises her young charge to grab the bull by the horns and enjoy herself, ignoring the risks and heartbreak this will inevitably bring…

It’s a mad whirl of a film with Clelia at the heart ultimately having to decide if it’s the love of a good if lowly fellow like Carlo or a magnificent career like that of her boss (Maria Gambarelli) she wants. This is where the film is so clever as it confounds our cinematic expectations of “good” and “bad”. Characters behave in unexpected but entirely convincing ways and as the story winds up to its various climaxes, one by one, the leading narratives gently slap us in the face, not for effect perhaps, but more in anger.

Certainly one to see in the BFI’s Antonioni series if youcan - it runs through February - and another nail in the coffin of the “Only good after 1960” mindset I’d once assumed... wrong again Paul, so wrong!

Ettore Manni and Eleonora Rossi Drago