Some film review books claim Antonioni's best work was all shot in monochrome and thereafter he was less effective, but this movie easily dispels that argument. Colour gives him an extra tool with which to elaborate his familiar themes of alienation and failing relationships. It's the best work I've seen by this darling- director of the art-house set. The use of colour, the eerie locations, the juxtaposition of almost horrific industrial installations belching coloured smoke with deserted ancient Italian streets and the electronic soundtrack (hard to call it a score as such)is disturbing and arresting. The natural world is grey and brown, the man-made elements are primary coloured, invasive and overpowering. Within this landscape, fizzing and gurgling with pollution and decay we find an unhinged engineers wife who's recovering poorly from a car accident and struggling to cope the responsibility of motherhood and being the wife of a man tied up with his career. Some reviewers pour scorn on Monica Vitti's performance in this difficult and complex lead role. Does she over act? Is she hamming it up? I'd prefer to think that she's playing the part of a woman on the edge, torn in different directions at a moment of emotional weakness, without the mental strength to comprehend how odd her behaviour actually is - in short, she's playing it right. Although it must me said her face is unusually immobile in every role she plays so if her body language might be considered over- the-top her facial expression certainly never is. And she has a distinct air of fragility about her. Richard Harris as the 'other man' in her life is an odd choice for the role. Clearly speaking English dialogue but dubbed over by an Italian-speaking actor, and thus lacking the familiar husky lilting tones one expects to hear. He's rather gloomy,but then so is everyone in this film! His character's presence seems only to push Vitti's closer to the abyss, adding another element of unhappiness and uncertainty to her tormented life.
It's not, as you've no doubt deduced, a happy film, in any way, but it has a rhythm and style which will keep you watching and unlike Antonioni's previous films there is a certain structure which makes it more more accessible. Perhaps in being set among working people (although far from 'working class') as opposed to the 'idle rich' of films like L'AVENTTURA, gives it more gravitas? Frankly the navel-gazing of poor-me-life-is-such-a-bore characters of those films makes them much harder to care about than fragile frustrated Vitti in RED DESERT. For the immaculate visual style and striking use of colour alone, this film is well worth the effort (and it is sometimes an effort)of watching but the story line and Vitti's character also make it worth listening to. One curiosity - why the clearly intentional scenes shot out-of-focus? Bizarre and entirely pointless as far as I could see, but a minor quibble.
It's not, as you've no doubt deduced, a happy film, in any way, but it has a rhythm and style which will keep you watching and unlike Antonioni's previous films there is a certain structure which makes it more more accessible. Perhaps in being set among working people (although far from 'working class') as opposed to the 'idle rich' of films like L'AVENTTURA, gives it more gravitas? Frankly the navel-gazing of poor-me-life-is-such-a-bore characters of those films makes them much harder to care about than fragile frustrated Vitti in RED DESERT. For the immaculate visual style and striking use of colour alone, this film is well worth the effort (and it is sometimes an effort)of watching but the story line and Vitti's character also make it worth listening to. One curiosity - why the clearly intentional scenes shot out-of-focus? Bizarre and entirely pointless as far as I could see, but a minor quibble.