No landscape is as lovely as a woman.
And dozens of a dudes leering at her is still as menacing as it was in 1960.
Season 2 of White Lotus sees the gang in Italy, and the Mike White series has taken full advantage of the landscape, especially in the third episode where Aubrey Plaza strolls front and center through a shot-for-shot remake of an iconic L’Avventura scene. Mike White told Variety that it was cinematographer Xavier Grobet’s idea to film the homage, since the production found themselves in the same plaza in Noto, Italy where Michelangelo Antonioni filmed the original scene.
L’Avventura starts with a missing woman, becomes a romance, and dissolves into a brilliant rumination on life as well as a gorgeously maddening experience for anyone who craves closure. In the scene, Monica Vitti walks slowly through a loose crowd of men in the plaza as they openly and aggressively ogle her. In White Lotus, Plaza takes a few steps in Vitti’s shoes with a new pack of oglers looking on.
The side-by-side is so cool. Only White Lotus offers a sense of relief.
White noted the clear similarities between the two works, saying, “L’Avventura is about the desperate search for the meaning of life as much as the actual disappeared woman. Obviously, White Lotus touches on the malaise of wealthy people and that kind of search for meaning when you’re just lounging by an infinity pool.”
(via Variety)