Monday Mar 16, 2009 (9pm)
Tonight marks the third installment of Poisson Rouge's sample-sized film-appreciation series, Deeper Into Movies, (a nod to Pauline Kael's influential 1973 tome) and the subject happens to be a minefield: Michelangelo Antonioni. As part of the arthouse scene in the '60s with Fellini, Bergman, et al., the Italian modernist composed spare, architectural reels on alienation that left some stumped with their pretentiousness (Andrew Sarris lambasted Antonioni with the byname "Antoni-ennui") and others stumping for more of his lovely, long-take compositions. Back to back, Antonioni's two legendarily elliptic opuses, Blowup and L'Avventura, offer a perfect four-and-a-half-hour litmus test of which side you fall on.
– Jason Jude Chan