Il deserto rosso
Tags: insanity, boring

Plot synopsis:
In Ravenna, Italy, Giuliana (Monica Vitti) is walking with her young son, Valerio, towards the petrochemical plant managed by her husband, Ugo. Passing workers who are on strike, Giuliana nervously and impulsively purchases a half-eaten sandwich from one of the workers. They are surrounded by strange industrial structures and debris that create inhuman images and sounds. Inside the plant, Ugo (Carlo Chionetti) is talking with a visiting business associate, Corrado Zeller (Richard Harris), who is looking to recruit workers for an industrial operation in Patagonia, Argentina. Ugo and Corrado converse comfortably in the noisy factory. Ugo tells Corrado that his wife, Giuliana, had a recent auto accident, and though she was physically unhurt, she has not been right mentally. That night in their apartment, Giuliana becomes highly agitated and fearful over a dream she had about sinking in quicksand. Ugo is unable to calm her or understand what she's experiencing.
Attracted to Giuliana, Corrado visits her at an empty shop she's planning to open and talks about his life and the restless nature of his existence. She accompanies him to Ferrara on one of his worker recruitment drives, and she indirectly reveals details about her mental state. She tells him that when she was in the hospital, she met a young woman patient who was advised by her doctors to find someone or something to love—a husband, a son, a job, even a dog. She speaks of the young woman feeling like there was "no ground beneath her, like she was sliding down a slope, sinking, always on the verge of drowning." They travel to a radio observatory in Medicina, where Corrado hopes to recruit a top worker. Surrounded by cold industrial architecture, Giuliana seems lost in her loneliness and isolation.
The following weekend, Giuliana, Ugo, and Corrado are walking beside a polluted estuary where they meet up with another couple, Max and Linda, and together they drive to a small riverside shack at Porto Corsini where they meet Emilia. They spend time in the shack engaged in trivial small talk filled with jokes, role-playing, and sexual innuendo. Giuliana seems to find temporary solace in these mindless distractions. A mysterious ship docks directly outside their shack, and as she looks out to the open sea, Giuliana confides to Corrado, "I can't look at the sea for long or I lose interest in what's happening on land." During their conversations, Corrado and Giuliana have grown closer, and he shows interest and sympathy for her. Like Giuliana, Corrado is also alienated, but he is better adapted to and accepting of his environment, telling her, "You wonder what to look at; I wonder how to live." When a doctor arrives to board the ship, Giuliana, seeing that the ship is now quarantined due to an infectious disease, rushes off in a state of panic. Her unwillingness to stay, or to return to the shack to retrieve the purse she left behind, underscores her state of alienation from the others.
Sometime later, Ugo leaves on a business trip, and Giuliana spends more time with Corrado, revealing more about her anxieties. One day she discovers that her son has apparently become suddenly paralyzed from the waist down. Fearing he has contracted polio, Giuliana tries to comfort her son with a story about a young girl who lives on an island and swims off a beach at an isolated cove. The girl is at home with her surroundings, but after a mysterious sailing ship approaches offshore, all the rocks of the cove seem to come alive and sing to her in one voice. Soon after, Giuliana discovers to her shock that Valerio was only pretending to be paralyzed. Unable to imagine why her son would do such a cruel thing, Guiliana's sense of loneliness and isolation returns.
Desperate to end her inner turmoil, Giuliana goes to Corrado's apartment where he tries to force his affections on her. Initially resisting Corrado's advances, Giuliana eventually accepts his affections, and the two make love in his bed. The intimacy, however, does little to relieve Giuliana's sense of isolation. The next day, a distraught Giuliana leaves Corrado and wanders to a dockside ship where she meets a foreign sailor and tries to communicate her feelings to him, but he cannot understand her words. Acknowledging the reality of her isolation, she says, "We are all separate." At that point, Giuliana seems to be completely alone and at her lowest state.
Sometime later, Giuliana is again walking with her son near her husband's plant. Valerio notices a nearby smokestack emitting poisonous yellow smoke and wonders if birds are being killed by the toxic emissions. Giuliana tells him that the birds have learned not to fly near the poisonous yellow smoke.

Review: "Red Desert" is wonderfully symbolic (the title will make sense later in the film), and illustrates confused, tortured states of mind with landscapes & sets, not to mention the utterings & behavior of this woman.
Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni's 1964 piece 'Red Desert' is, on the surface, a film that deals with the changing face of the world under rampant industrialisation, but far more than that it's a comment on alienation and human adaptability in such a society.
One criticism that's easy to level at 'Red Desert' is that it's an entirely singular film - Guiliana is undoubtedly the protagonist of this piece, but everyone else, even the ambiguous love interest Zeller, appears on screen barely defined.
"Il Deserto Rosso" should be more known among Antonioni's fans - it's a remarkable film - in the beginning we see a woman (Monica Vitti) with her little son wandering in an industrial landscape..............
Still....Maybe the story in itself would not be sufficient to raise one's interest, but the way Antonioni tells it makes this film an interrogation mark concerning man and modern society.
Some of it is shown - like when Giuliana (Monica Vitti) is with husband and friends by the sea and the fog slowly makes the others' faces look strange and nightmarish.Giuliana lives near the industrial concern (managed by her husband) - a small town in the vicinity, a solitary sea, a dock and some ships in it, big chimneys expelling smoke and foggy nights & days complete the picture.
A soft thump unlike anything else, that can only be evoked in memories as primal as taste: scotch, sex, sea air.May you find something like this experience in your encounter with cinema, something to anchor the story you tell yourself about ideal order.(That same beach is mapped onto a shack, outside to inside and painted red in the later images.)Ted's Evaluation -- 4 of 3: Every cineliterate person should experience this..
Antonioni’s fourth film in a row with muse Monica Vitti sees the actress in perhaps her most difficult role yet; her co-star was Richard Harris: it was certainly interesting that the director wanted him so soon after having achieved stardom with Lindsay Anderson’s THIS SPORTING LIFE (1963) but, in retrospect, his is a part that anybody could have filled in adequately.
It was ironic, then, that Harris and Antonioni didn’t see eye to eye and, reportedly, the former walked off the set (or was “kicked off”, depending on what sources one reads) and the film had to be completed with a double for its male star!Anyway, the industrial wasteland (full of fuming factories, polluted rivers, massive steel structures, plague-ridden merchant ships) against which the events are set is supposed to mirror the lead character’s emotional turmoil; we first see her literally “scrounging for her next meal” (as Bob Dylan famously sang).
Despite being ostensibly a character study, what we get – as is Antonioni’s fashion – are vaguely-defined characters and half-disclosed information (such as the nature of work in which both Harris and Vitti’s husband are involved, her own traffic accident which brought on her mental collapse, her son’s sudden and apparently inexplicable disability, the plague outbreak, and the source of the singing heard by the girl in the fable recounted by Vitti to her convalescent offspring).As in BLOWUP (1966), the Italian surroundings here are made to seem other-wordly – as if the narrative was taking place in some forbidding science-fiction landscape; this is augmented by the electronics-infused soundtrack (occasionally interrupted by ethereal vocals, as mentioned earlier) and the meticulous color scheme (RED DESERT marked Antonioni’s departure from black-and-white cinema – in retrospect, it also emerges as one of his most haunting efforts).
The film is quite long, however, and drags a bit during its second half…but the ending is, once again, inspired – with Vitti finally opening up, even if it’s in front of a foreign (and, therefore, non-comprehending) sailor.The undeniable highlights of the piece are the Sunday afternoon outing at a remote cabin which develops into an orgy and the visualization of the afore-mentioned fable (featuring the red desert, actually pink-colored sand, of the title which symbolizes a sunny Utopia away from the contaminations of the modern world).
Curiously enough, after this, both Antonioni and Vitti went ‘mod’ in Britain with BLOWUP and Joseph Losey’s MODESTY BLAISE (1966) respectively.I’ve been tempted to pick up the R4 SE DVD of this one – featuring an Audio Commentary and a 1-hour documentary on the director (also available on the Criterion 2-Disc Set of Antonioni and Vitti’s previous collaboration, L’ECLISSE [1962], which I’ve just ordered!) – but, since the R1 Image disc is now OOP and a number of that company’s titles have received the Criterion treatment, it shouldn’t be too long (especially now that the film-maker has passed away) before it’s time for RED DESERT to get its own re-release...It seems to me that of the two brief retrospectives I recently embarked on, Antonioni’s has emerged as the more rewarding; some of Ingmar Bergman’s films would rate very highly on their own but, collectively, they lack the visual diversity which lends the Italian film-maker’s work its lingering fascination and compulsive aura of mystery..
Red Desert is a beautifully shot film about that ever-modern problem of alienation in the face of progress.
Michelangelo Antonioni is as interested in obscuring images as he is capturing them: he periodically drifts his action out of focus, and in one of the film's most masterful scenes, places a dense layer of fog between his principals and his camera, fading them into just barely visible silhouettes.
After a neorealist period (Il grido),Antonioni begins his movies dealing with incommunicability with "l'avventura" in 1960,continues with "la notte" (1961) and "l'eclisse"(1962).This trilogy is in black and white and features Monica Vitti,his favorite actress -although in "la notte" she's only supporting,the main part being played by Jeanne Moreau-.'IL deserto rosso' is more of the same ;it's even more difficult and austere than the three former movies.It is the first time Antonioni has experimented color and the results are impressive:he creates a depressing landscape where the colors are cold,drab and dirty.The depiction of an industrial dehumanized world is convincing as Vitti,suffering from neurosis,roams aimlessly along this desert(wonderful lines:her son :"the yellow smoke contains poison,the birds will die";mother: "no,they know it does ,and they don't come here anymore").During almost two hours,absolutely nothing happens,frames of mind,people holding conversations that are always incomplete,pointless actions,roads leading nowhere....The problem is:are we moved by all that?Can we relate to this woman's despair?As far I'm concerned,only partially, not to say bluntly no.Incommunicability had already been treated by Roberto Rosselini: in "Europa 51" he put Ingrid Bergman in the same world as Vitti ;when the world pressure began too hard to bear ,she rebelled in her own way,she did not accept the society in which she lived in,nothing to do with Vitti's listless character.In " Viaggio in Italia",the invisible wall between a man and his wife (George Sanders and Bergman) was already here.This couple vibrated through their suffering and their despair,Vitti and her husband do not.Rosselini created flesh and blood characters,Antonioni's ones have ectoplasm strength:such are the two characters of "l'avventura" searching for a disappeared girl,the wealthy couple of "la notte" -who only exists because played by peerless Mastroianni and Moreau-,forgetting their ennui in their friend's palace."My characters move in a rich milieu,because their feeling are not brought about by money "Antonioni used to say.That does not prevent them from being selfish,egocentric and " I-me-mine".With his follow-up "blow-up" ,Antonioni gained world-wide success and he continued the color experiment,as an acid green London testifies.The plot becoming completely abstract,the characters will become less important,therefore a more satisfying movie.Until the very end,as he was disabled,Antonioni was obsessed by color:his last movie was a remake of Jean Cocteau's "l'aigle à deux têtes",with a stunning color treatment..
In the mind's fixation to a world we think should be unchanging and always grasped, the world itself begins to fade.When they finally separate, Guiliana pushing him out because now she knows he can't help her, knowing also that the courage must come from inside and that she must not cling to things or people to get through the day, Corrado leaving with hardly a word, knowing at the same time that he can't help her either, it's like a firework of cinema.The final scene, where Guiliana explains to her son about the poisonous yellow smoke and how the birds have learned not to fly there, could be saying too much about her newfound awareness because we can infer it from the scene with the Turkish sailor, but I like how Antonioni bottles the sentiment in a gentle metaphor.
As humans we may be swimming alone in a sea of suffering, but we can learn to tranquil the hand that makes it navigable.The one touch I have a hard time swallowing, is that Antonioni doesn't trust us to understand who the "girl in the hospital" was, making Monica Vitti tell us.
As with films he made later, his cinema is spiritually important to me because conceptual understanding of ideas he presents or the appreciation of the visual vocabulary, which is rich in color and texture like few directors managed, cannot substitute for the final, tangible, experience of living through it all..
Having now seen Michelangelo Antonioni's L'Aventurra trilogy and his fourth film focusing on themes of alienation and isolation, I must say that the point has been made.
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.
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.
That is not saying it's a bad film, it isn't (pretty good actually) and there is a lot to like, also connected with it more than with 'Blow-Up'.'Red Desert' is somewhat heavy-handed in how it handles its subject in places, when Antonioni goes to extremes making his point.
Always felt that Richard Harris was an odd choice on paper and still think that watching the film, have often heard people say he was miscast and seeing how badly out of his element and how obviously he was dubbed is it is hard to disagree with this.However, Antonioni directs with full command and ease of the material, even if it is not always subtle.
So it was not the most comfortable of watches but did transfix and did connect with me emotionally, while also confusing me far less than 'Blow-Up' did.Monica Vitti gives an intensely impassioned and deeply felt performance as a very vividly complex character, whose writing and development is one of the film's more interesting assets.
There are memorable sequences, such as the one with the fable and the ending is not easy to forget, almost as much as the one for 'L'Eclisse'.Concluding, not one of my favourite Antonioni films (Harris' miscasting, some of the pace and the dialogue bringing it down) but pretty good with some great things (Vitti and the cinematography being the main reasons to see it.
A thematic expression of Mr. Antonioni has not undergone significant changes compared to his previous films.Giuliana is walking with her young son around the petrochemical plant managed by her husband.
Should have learned my lesson after Zabriskie Point but I guess I keep expecting a color-filled Blow Up. I'd go to 3-4 stars for this film with just Monica Vitti walking around jarring industrial landscapes.
"There's something terrible in reality," Guiliana (Monica Viti) tells Corrado Zeller (Richard Harris) towards the end of the film.
The first Michelangelo Antonioni movie in color, Red Desert stars Monica Vitti whom audiences would by now be already acquainted with after the successful and acclaimed trilogy with L'Avventura, La Notte and L'Elisse.
While much has been said about Antonioni bringing about a stark palette of colors which highlights the inner psychological turmoil of the characters, or use it to great effect to talk about the negative effects man has on his environment just like how deadly the yellow was representing sulphur, it did plod on a little especially when it dwelled upon the usual relationship factor between its lead characters.Vitti stars as Giuliana, a woman whom we see in the beginning and get quite uncomfortable with, as she purchases an already eaten piece of food, and going off to a corner to munch on it with much satisfaction.
I guess it is through her great performance here as an explicitly portrayed confused woman, that made sitting through this story bearable, because otherwise, we'll be stuck with Richard Harris' Corrado Zeller, a rich industrialist with a one track mind, and that's to bed Vitti's Giuliana, at whatever the cost.And his attempts don't fall short of persistent as well, with his constant probing, requesting, so much so that he's desperate personified.
Little (apparently) happens, slow pace, long scenes without any dialogues (Brian De Palma saw for sure Antonioni's films ...), some things (seemingly) pointless, improved and obsessive technique in sound and image.
For entering I will recommend something like Zabriskie Point (my favorite from him) or The Passenger (my second).This is a film about woman (Monica Vitti), a very sensitive one, and beautiful too, living in her world, a very ugly and toxic, a distanced one, filmed with masterful directing and cinematography.
Monica Vitti, Antonioni's muse, was great in this film.
RED DESERT is prominent because it is Antonioni's first colour feature, and remarkably the first one has already been able to stun the world with its unique palette aesthetics, with "Red" in the title, one might assume the film would be a torrid emotional roller-coaster with desire and energy, but what the film actually presents is the consuming mental malady in the budding industrialism, set in Ravenna, our protagonist is Giuliana (Antonioni's regular muse Vitti), a married woman with a proclivity of mental unstableness due to an accident which never be disclosed to viewers.
Her husband Ugo (Chionetti) is the manager of a petrol-chemical plant, so she often wanders in the drab surroundings with her son (Bartoleschi).The production team does a singular job to construct an inhumane optical exhibition with smoke-puffing smokestacks, giant radio telescope pylons, egregious industrial waste, mechanical factories, formidable cargo vessels, all conspires to a magnificent manufactured landscape, it all seems familiar, but under Antonioni's fabrication, everything is either eerily suffocating or frostily portentous, Giuliana is completely enveloped by this breathless state, even after she meets Ugo's business associate Corrado (Harris), she projects him as an alternative to elude her tormented id, they grow closer, she confides in him, but Corrado is a too reticent man to divulge his thoughts, he is a keen observer, there is undeniable lust in his eyes (specifically in the episode where they are in a shack near the pier with Ugo and their friends for the action of the forthcoming but tacit adultery), but mostly it is more like a psychiatrist watches his patient, he listens, often attentively, yet, he is powerless to get her through, eventually he submits to man's primitive sex drive and leaves her astray in the limbo of her impaired perception about her existence.
It is a continuum which extends from Antonioni's Black & White "Incommunicability Trilogy: L'AVVENTURA (1960, 6/10), LA NOTTE (1961, 8/10) and L'ECLISSE (1962, 7/10)", and under this specific milieu, the time- irrelevant setting with persistent humming around, it transcends into a telling disposition of our wanting comprehension of the reality, and the ever-so-unfathomable of a human soul.Monica Vitti accomplishes arguably her career-best performance here, she is constantly on the verge of a nervous breakdown, sometimes it is even painful to behold such a destructively raw liberation, she is eternally situated in a state of fright, of the air she breathe, of the sound pestering her mind, of everything around her.
Guiliana (Monica Vitti), a housewife married to the plant manager, Ugo (Carlo Chionetti), is mentally ill, hiding it from her husband as best she can.This was director Michelangelo Antonioni's first film in color, which is appropriate given the title.While this not explicitly intended as political or social commentary, this interpretation is unavoidable when set in such a place as a dirty, lifeless factory.
A good example of this tendency is Antonioni's 1964 film The Red Desert (Il Deserto Rosso), his first film shot in color.The film is lauded as a great example of the use of color, or an expressionistic or impressionistic work of art (apparently critics cannot decide, again proving they do not even know what the terms mean), but then dismissed as slow, dull, or that old stand by, 'It's like watching paint dry.' Well, only if you're an idiot, or think that the lowest common denominator crap of a Steven Spielberg is somehow an example of 'genius.' As with Stanley Kubrick's later magisterial 2001: A Space Odyssey, this film does not lack a narrative, nor is the narrative poor.
The mental conflicts Giuliana has throughout Red Desert are shown by prominent uses of various colours to represent the notions of human nature.
Giuliana(Monica Vitti)is a ill woman who after a car accident starts to see things as they really are (just like a person in a certain age starts to see how sick, disturbed and dark the world he lives in is), and that is what disturbs her, because she (and some people)can not and will not accept things as they really are and her condition (which is the same as everyone else).