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| Red Desert |
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  (7/10)
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Runtime: 116 |
| Public Rating: 8.43 (7 votes) |
Director: Michelangelo Antonioni |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Drama |
Year: 1964 |
| Writer(s): Michelangelo Antonioni, Tonino Guerra |
| Reviewed by: Vadim Rizov |
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Near the end of Michelangelo Antonioni's "revolutionary" Red Desert, Monica Vitti, who's been suffering a prolonged mental breakdown for most of the movie, finally says that she believes that, whatever happens to her, that's just her life, and there's no need to freak. Unfortunately, it takes the poor woman two hours to reach this decision. The audience, surprisingly, doesn't pay for this indulgence. Antonioni's movie, oddly enough, shows very little, but isn't really boring at all. It's odd, of course, to leave the theater feeling like you're not sure exactly what it was you just saw; you feel like you ought to watch the movie again, just to make it more comprehensible (lots of symbolism), but you don't really want to watch this again for a long time.
Giuliana (Monica Vitti) is obviously bad news from the first moment she appears. Walking up to a stranger eating a sandwhich, she asks, timidly, where he bought it. Then she buys it from him (even though he already started eating it) and leaves the astonished gentlemen to eat her sandwich in solitude, cowering in the marshes. Clearly, she has problems. Husband Ugo (Carlo Chionetti, who only has one credit on the IMDB) works at the local power plant, which also depresses Giuliana; she has issues with technology. Then there's the question of her failed suicide attempt, and unfortunate son Max (Aldo Grotti, another one-credit wonder), who's smothered by her obsessive love and bad parenting. Naturally, all this can lead to one conclusion: adultery with Corrado Zeller (Richard Harris, dubbed).
I haven't yet mentioned the movie's excessive symbolism, which, except for the overly obvious parts, I didn't bother deciphering: mysterious streaks on walls, colors, etc. It's a symptom of the 60s origin of this movie; so is the Richard Harris character, a pseudo-profound jackass who gets to talk about "deep" matters like his political orientation (unsurprisingly, a halfway socialist) and, of course, how to approach Life. This confuses Giuliana even more.
To you (or at least me), it may seem like Antonioni has made an overly obvious statement about the role of technology and environment in the life of humans. His use of the "bourgeoisie" as an example of idleness and shallowness also seems outdated. However, he had an excuse: everyone can be like this, but only "the ruling class" have the time to indulge in these weaknesses. Of course, they are sexually repressed (big surprise). Oddly enough, though, Antonioni, like me, doesn't seem to sympathize with his "heroine": he stated that he considers her a neurotic who hasn't adapted to her environment and needed to.
Despite the outdated ideas and techniques, Antonioni in the end did create something lasting and remarkable: a story in which seeming non-events turn out to be something important and interesting. Unless you have a short attention span (in which case you need to train yourself using Bresson movies), this isn't at all boring; it just seems, after first viewing, to have less than meets the eye. Whether the story was worth filming in the first place (debatable) is a different question. Making nothing interesting is a substantial feat; the movie also has a lovely "story" Giuliana tells her son. So, in many ways, a remarkable film, probably easier to watch in a theater than on video
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