Upon its first screening at the Cannes Film Festival, The Adventure was booed by the audience and director Michelangelo Antonioni and star Monica Vitti fled the theater. It was screened again and won the Jury Prize. People are fickle.
It did pretty well in the box office considering it has zero story and what action that is happening goes at a snail's pace. During one lengthy scene in which Claudia is running down a corridor in search of something, Cannes filmgoers repeatedly yelled "Cut!" Rough. It was also heavily edited for its supposed "immoral" love scenes. The swinging '60s hadn't really hit Italy yet.
The Adventure would launch Vitti's career as she become one of the foremost Italian actresses including Antonioni's Red Desert. Accordingly, neither film makes a heck of a whole lot of sense. The visuals and these wayward characters tend to serve as some sort of commentary. Like Red Desert has this almost dystopian view of industrial, post-war Europe. Even Vitti's character -- just after a suicide attempt -- is so sad and depressing, as you would imagine.
Interestingly, The Adventure begins with a group of young, beautiful society people on a yacht trip when they come upon a volcanic island. One of the girls, disappears, and the next 20 minutes of the film are these people searching for the girl and then the authorities coming in to find the girl or her body.
Instead, the film follows Claudia after the disappearance. They not only really address Anna's disappearance, but they don't even provide any kind of closure. Roger Ebert wrote that her disappearance and a lack of an explanation represented these people's pointless lives and how they can "disappear" at any moment. And he's a whole lot smarter than me so I'll go with it.
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