Verdict: Foggy
Cool cinematography but unstable characters without a concrete story.
Review
Not as bad as Hiroshima Mon Amour which I watched last week, but this film too seemed to have no direction. We follow Giuliana (Monica Vitti) as she wanders through life after a car accident left her a bit loose in the head. Her husband, Ugo (Carlo Chionetti) cares for her but doesn’t seem to or want to understand how she feels. Ugo’s business colleague, Corrado Zeller (Richard Harris) turns up and there is somewhat of a connection between Corrado and Giuliana, as lost souls finding each other. Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni.
My film studies professor made us watch this film to understand the essence of the time-image as proposed by Gilles Deleuze. Basically, its a form of cinema wherein the story throughout the film makes not change whatsoever to how it ends. Here, we see Giuliana lost in the world with an unstable mentality and numerous mental breakdowns. At the end, she is still somewhat the same, however there is a minor change mentally, but not outwardly. Hiroshima Mon Amour would also be a perfect example of the time-image as pretty much nothing happens (I was figuratively dying watching that, and died a bit watching this – even the trailer gives multiple mind farts).
The acting was awkward, the movements slow and deliberate, and there are lots of times in the film where time just seems to stop. This is intentional, but as a movie buff (of modern times), this does not entertain me.
The cinematography was probably the only good thing in this film. Well, maybe some lines were great too. Mainly, everything that was shot (including the colour tinting of scenes) emphasized the inner workings of Giuliana’s mind. That she feels like she is alone and doesn’t belong anywhere. She clings to the walls when she walks, she sits next to a slanted cart that shows how she is out of balance with the world, and there are shots (mainly one that I can think of) where she is literally out of focus. She is like a red desert, ‘red’ perhaps alluding to her anxiety of feeling this way, and ‘desert’ referring to her solitude.
Also, I do like the ending because it serves as a metaphor that she’s found a way to keep on living with her disoriented mentality. Those ending lines were great. Oh and that one scene in the second half of the film about a story of a girl on an island, though totally random as it is, was interesting.
To sum-up:
PROS: Cinematography, ending scene
CONS: Story, acting
I give this a 6/10.
Have you seen Red Desert? Rate it out of 5 stars above or leave a comment below!
championangels 