Three characters, a man played by Umberto Orsini, a youth played by Dino Mele and a woman played by Francoise Prevost move around each other in winter on the deserted island of Capri. I think the constant reference to an almost Antonioni inspired film is a mistake. Patroni-Griffi had his own vision of the difficulty of human and sexual contact, but adds another dimension to love's possibilities and that is homosexual desire. The man and the youth do not consummate their attraction and Francoise Prevost, lost to her own desires tries to satisfy the man. This trio unlike the one in Antonioni's ' L'Avventura ' do not lose one of the three and sadly Antonioni in my opinion had no conception of homosexuality, other than two stereotypes swishing through the streets of London in ' Blow Up. ' Griffi was clearly well aware that love has two poles of loving, hetero and homo and perhaps he was aware that the cinema of the early 1960's was not ready to see at least a physical outcome to male desire. I have ' Il Mare ' with English subtitles and is it still ignorance or homophobia that prevents its distribution on DVD ? I would like to challenge those who prefer to ignore this film's existence to come out of their heterosexual closets and to equally acknowledge that this is not some niche film that they can avoid. It is a fine film, beautifully filmed and acted and is in my opinion one of the greatest Italian films of its period. A lost film that can be found, but perversely remains lost. As mysterious a situation as the lost woman on Antonioni's island but even that mystery had its reasons if Antonioni had decided so. Distributors decide and they can on this masterpiece.
Review of Il mare
