Michelangelo Antonioni, La Notte (1961)

La Notte (1961) by Micheleangelo Antonioni is another film featuring Mastroianni as a "lost" latin lover. In the film Mastroianni is a novelist doubting his marriage to his wife Lidia. The film is another internally based film where the actions in the film serve to further the internal narrative of the film's main characters. What is interesting about this film in comparison to 8 1/2 for example, is that the marital doubts are coming from both husband and wife. It is not only the husband that is seen as a sort of "betrayer." Instead La Notte goes beyond the male figure and begins to explore Lidia's internal state as well. For example after the couple visits their dying friend in the hospital, Lidia wanders off into the city alone. The scene expresses a sense of solitude and sadness in Lidia. Nobody knew where she went and at the end even her husband begins to show concern. The film deals with the complex relationship of the couple and not only the male character. In order to understand  Giovanni and Lidia as individuals in the film, we must also understand them as a couple and what we see is boredom within their marriage. A perfect example is when in hopes of livening up their evening Giovanni and Lidia go to a night club. The scene focuses and the sensual black dancer, Giovanni's interest in the dancer and the couple's lack of interest in each other. The rest of the film goes on to show how they try to find passion again. While neither actually cheats on the other, both find themselves interested in other people when they attend a lawn party at a wealthy estate. 

In all the movie itself is like a narrative, relating to Giovanni's profession in many ways; Giovanni is an author who can't seem to write the narrative to his own life. At the end of the film Lidia states that the narrative of their marriage has come to an end, but Giovanni, the "narrative constructor," won't allow such an ending and promises to continue writing their story. The ending leaves us the the couple in the grass embracing each other with Giovanni's promises to fix things. The ending is rather ambiguous as the viewer is left to speculate about Giovanni and Lidia's fate. In my opinion, the ending while possibly leaving viewers unsatisfied, speaks to the reality of life; that nothing is certain and that even in our own lives we can't know how our narrative will end.