I just finished watching Beyond the Clouds, directed by Michelangeo Antonioni. It’s a beautiful, slow-paced movie that often comes across more as a series of photos, or watercolors even, than a movie. Everything is so lush and sensual. The movie is shrowded in Italian coastal fog and thin silk nightgowns which roll back to reveal startlingly beautiful European women. Lots of sex here, but I wouldn’t call them “sex scenes”—that sounds too crude for what was portrayed. Each scene had its own emotions attached: Some of it was out of pity or revenge, some out of love and joy. Some was narrowly avoided due to “pride or folly.”

And within and between all these sex scenes, Beyond the Clouds gets into some philosophical and emotional grounds that we’re all too young to understand. I’ll need to watch this movie a few times—and maybe dig deeper into the Antonioni catalog—if I’m to have any chance of knowing what it’s all about. I’m looking forward to it.