Le amiche

Director: Michelangelo Antonioni

1955 / 106min / DCP

Perhaps the first of Antonioni’s films to give a clear indication of the direction of his mature style, this adaptation of Cesare Pavese’s Among Women Only finds glamorous Eleonora Rossi Drago returning to her hometown of Turin to open a branch of a fashion boutique, in the process taking up with the miserable, sniping local smart set and beginning an affair with architect’s assistant Franco Fabrizi. The air of bourgeois discontentment is thick, while the disquieting train station finale is the first of Antonioni’s great set pieces.

Distributor: Janus Films