Michelangelo Antonioni is a major cultural event. Antonioni is one of the most important artists of the twentieth century. It is difficult to put into words films composed principally of images, of colour, of movement, of shape, of design more than they are of story, character and event. The visual, and in the case of Antonioni's films a visual which is beautiful and fine, elegant and exquisite, can only be approximated in words. His images ore constantly shifting.
Objects disappear and recompose, lines, structures, colours, tones shimmer and alter.
Nothing is fixed in an Antonioni image, nothing secure, nothing clear, at least not for very long. His vision touches things like a caress, glances by them, sensitive to changes in light and shape, and to changes brought about by the act of looking itself. The sense of impermanence in his films includes both what is seen and what takes place. Love affairs evaporate, disappear like figures losing outline in a mist. Quests become diverted, forgotten.