Red Desert (1964)

 Michelangelo Antonioni's "Red Desert"

1964's "Red Desert" would be an important point in Michelanglo Antonioni's illustrious career. It would be the very last time he ever worked with his muse, Monica Vitti. It was also the very first time he used color in film. For these notable points, "Red Desert" seems to mark a transition point between the Italian films centering on modern isolation and malaise in the early 1960s and the more international films Antonioni would go on to make. 

Vitti plays a woman married to an industrialist who runs a petrochemical plant in Ravenna, Italy. The plant is surrounded by a wasteland, as it has dumped all of its toxic chemicals on the nearby land and in the nearby water source. Vitti's character, Giuliana, is losing her grip on reality, as her husband grows increasingly neglectful. Her husband's business partner, Corrado, is more sensitive to Giuliana's anxieties and attempts an affair with her. However, Giuliana's mental illness only gets worse and her mental state deteriorates rapidly. 

I personally find "Red Desert" to be the less interesting film of Antonioni's string of Italian masterpieces from the early 60s. However, I still found it to be fascinating. Firstly, it appears the theme of the film is all the more blatant by the intensity with which the disformed wasteland surrounding the industrial monstrosity that Antonioni is ever-present. I feel as though the film is communicating the disorienting psychological neurosis that occurs as the industrialization and destruction of the earth for profit takes affect in the latter half of the 20th century. As the post-war era moves into the stage of unchecked capitalist and industrialist power, the complete devastation of Earth commences. Our protagonist, Giuliana, cannot stand existence any longer. She wants to escape, either literally out of her location or by suicide. The deformation of everything around her causes a lapse of her well-being, while the more industrialist characters seem to be fine in the changing landscape. As Antonioni said of his film later, "The neurosis I sought to describe in 'Red Desert' is above all a matter of adjusting." 

Visually, "Red Desert" is Antonioni's starkest film yet. The vibrant use of colors he employs for the first time ever pop off the screen, along with the decay and decrepit wasteland. As painterly as Antonioni can be in his films, you see him for the first time using color in his vast sketchbook. It is quite a film for the eyes and perhaps even emphasizes the main themes to even greater effects. 

Although the film isn't as high up as say the trilogy of films that came before, it is still a considerable achievement in 1960s filmmaking. Antonioni continues to construct meditations on the new, evolving modern world and the complete dissociation of its inhabitants, restraining themselves from engaging with anything. It fits very neatly into his cannon and I quite enjoyed every bit of it.