The Vanquished (1953)

A trilogy of stories of well-off youths who commit murders. In the French episode, a group of high school students kill one of their colleagues for his money. In the Italian episode, a ... See full summary »

Director:

Michelangelo Antonioni

Writers:

Michelangelo Antonioni (story), Suso Cecchi D'Amico (story)

Stars:

Etchika Choureau, Jean-Pierre Mocky, Jacques Sempey

1 nomination.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Etchika Choureau	...	Simone
Jean-Pierre Mocky	...	Pierre
Jacques Sempey	...	Andre (as Jeacques Sempey)
Henri Poirier	...	Georges (as Henry Poirier)
Annie Noël
Guy De Meulan
Franco Interlenghi	...	Claudio
Anna Maria Ferrero	...	Marina
Evi Maltagliati	...	Claudio's mother
Eduardo Ciannelli	...	Claudio's father
Peter Reynolds	...	Aubrey
Patrick Barr	...	Ken Wharton
Fay Compton	...	Mrs. Pinkerton
Eileen Moore	...	Sally (Aubrey's girlfriend)
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Jeanne Stuart

Storyline

A trilogy of stories of well-off youths who commit murders. In the French episode, a group of high school students kill one of their colleagues for his money. In the Italian episode, a university student's involved in smuggling cigarettes. In the English episode, a lazy poet finds the body of a woman on the downs, and tries to sell his story to the press.

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Plot Keywords:

italy | murder | death penalty | necklace | anthology | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Did You Know?

Trivia

Jeanne Stuart's final film.

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Connections

References Skirts Ahoy! (1952)

User Reviews

nope

This is the only one of Antonioni's films that was clearly reshaped, to some degree, by the censors. It begins and ends with moralistic announcements about how the youth of the film's post-war today treat murder and brutality as a path towards notoriety in the press, implying that the political upheaval of the era had made the kids bloodthirsty. This "public service announcement" then demonizes both the characters of the film, many of whom will commit or take credit for a murder, and the insurrectionary movements that were gripping Italy at the time, with the voice of a prosaic humanism that was wholly alien to Antonioni, and the true spirit of this work.

The triptych of stories of youth in major European cities getting violent is, as is typical of the auteur, extremely detached and non-judgmental. The first, about a bunch of Parisian kids killing their rich friend, is pretty prosaic both narratively and visually. The one exception to the latter is a great shot when a huge, remote control plane comes diving down on a field from nowhere, technology once again making the natural world seem alien and unnatural as it so often does for this director.

Perhaps the strongest, if not the most intriguing, segment is the middle one in the filmmaker's native language. The student son of a boughie Rome family gets involved with smuggling for kicks, and ends up very much living the consequences of his criminal path. This is the closest Antonioni ever came to making pure noir, with a brilliant chase scene on and through a bridge, with magnificent chiaroscuro compositions. This segment, with its privileged rebel earning the consequences of a violent path, seems to me to be a pre-cursor of Antonioni's magnum opus, The Passenger.

The final, English segment has many, widely reported, elements that will be more fully developed in Blow-Up. In both, an off-putting British youth finds a murder victim in a park and attempts to exploit it for media/art's sake. There are a few fine examples of "Antonioni streets" and character blocking, but mostly this segment is notable for how authentically British it feels, much more so than Blow-Up.

The afore mentioned book-ending add ons by the authorities try to shift the audience's perspective to that of the jury that confronts the main subject of one of the segments. But they're not fooling anyone. As he revealed in his "English language trilogy" Antonioni clearly identifies with the random violence of the "youth of today" and perhaps sees it as necessary for liberation. When the lead character of one segment announces that, "the end of a human life is of no significance" we are meant to identify with the speaker, not shudder at his words

Details

Country:

Italy France

Language:

Italian English French

Release Date:

8 March 1955 (Argentina)

Also Known As:

The Vanquished

Filming Locations:

London, England, UK

Company Credits

Production Co:

Film Costellazione Produzione, Société Générale de Cinématographie (S.G.C.)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

113 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1