THE RED DESERT Movie Review

Il Deserto Rosso

Michelangelo Antonioni went for broke in designing the images of his first color film, the story of an alienated woman (Monica Vitti) who searches for meaning and purpose in the industrial, lunar-like landscape of northern Italy. Antonioni uses settings and carefully controlled colors to represent Vitti's deteriorating, increasingly fractured mental state. His plan, which is often remarkably successful, is to show us a world that is both recognizable and realistic but also obviously “heightened,” the subjective “reality” of someone whose understanding of her world is splintering into something resembling primary colors and basic shapes, with very little middle ground. Red Desert is a fascinating, if less than utterly gripping, experiment by a master filmmaker. But beware; it makes no sense whatsoever if seen in a faded or poorly processed copy. Be sure that you see it in a recently restored and letterboxed videocassette, DVD (if available) or laserdisc version.

NEXT STOP … L'Avventura, The Passenger, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

1964 120m/C IT Monica Vitti, Richard Harris, Carlos Chionetti; D: Michelangelo Antonioni; W: Michelangelo Antonioni, Tonino Guerra; C: Carlo Di Palma; M: Giovanni Fusco. Venice Film Festival ‘64: Best Film. VHS FCT, CVC, TPV