The only innovation is in the use of color and video special effects. Antonioni and cinematographer Luciano Tovoli shot The Oberwald Mystery on videotape. They then performed odd permutations on the video image for three years, and transferred the results to film. Actors are bathed in colored lights suggestive of moods and motives. Ghostly figures appear and disappear, obedient to the characters' memories.
Backgrounds fade and are replaced with images suitable to the feeling of the scene.
It's all quite peculiar. And, alas, ineffective. Some experiments, unfortunately, are failures. The Oberwald Mystery must count as one such. The coloring of the characters is more silly than artistically satisfying, especially the blue filtering perpetually placed over the villainous head of the government's secret police.