La Signora senza Camelie (1953)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

La Signora senza Camelie (1953) – M. Antonioni

Antonioni’s second feature shows his interest in women’s experiences to be in full bloom. I haven’t read the play by Alexandre Dumas Fils (Lady with the Camellias or La Traviata or Camille) that Antonioni is referencing with the title but it seems to be about a woman who gives up her spoiled existence (albeit as a courtesan) to join her true love in a relationship which is ultimately thwarted because of concerns about propriety raised by his family. Here, the opposite seems to be happening: Lucia Bosé has no camellias – meaning she comes from a lower-class existence as a shopgirl and is thrown into a different sort of life as an actress discovered by a B-movie producer. Of course, the reason she is “discovered” is because she is sexy and the producers seek to exploit her appeal, a goal which she is willing to indulge.  However, soon she is pushed into marrying one of the filmmakers (who she doesn’t love) and he jealously tries to put the brakes on her career as a sexpot, opting instead to try her in a “serious” picture which he chooses to direct himself (a predictable flop). In short order, their relationship is on the rocks, she is courted by a local diplomat (perhaps only interested in her fame) and she finds it increasingly hard to know what to do.  She goes back to B films to make up for the financial hardship resulting from her foray into arthouse film, but her dreams have now grown bigger; she takes herself more seriously, but inevitably finds herself typecast and trapped in degrading exploitation fare (even as her producer ex-husband has successes from which she is excluded).  The ending is as bleak as you can get and you don’t have to have read the Dumas novel/play to realise that Bosé’s plight as a woman exploited by men, tainted by their objectification, and left to suffer with no standing of her own nor ability to pursue and fulfil her own goals is even more tragic (and relevant) than the earlier more famous work. Antonioni, of course, would continue to examine alienation as his key theme, toying more overtly with viewers’ expectations (and pictorial abstraction), a process only just begun in his early films.