The Vanquished: Michelangelo Antonioni’s anthology film tells three stories, all related to what the film dubs “the lost generation”, the youth growing up in post-WWII years. The first episode follows a group of Parisian high schoolers as they plan something terrible; the second follows the only son of a wealthy Roman family who gets involved in a smuggling ring; the third follows a London poet who finds a corpse and sells the story to a newspaper. Dispassionate in tone, the film tries to be objective in its telling; it doesn’t go too deep into the many characters, just sets them in action and watches them. Still, there is some value in its intent and message, relevant to these days still. The performances are low-key and generally efficient: the two stand-outs are Etchika Choureau, as the young seductress who is instrumental to the plan in the French episode, and Peter Reynolds, as the ambitious and emotionally distant poet in the English episode. The music, by composer Giovanni Fusco, is very good.