Criterion Collection: Red Desert [Blu-ray] [US Import]

Antonioni, love him or hate him, I mean Blow Up (read the short story - the devil's dribble) was special but becuse it had swinging London in it - the feeling that an episode of the Avengers is round the corner - then the Passenger and then I thought the red dessert. I mean desert but one felt like sending it back. It has soom wierd scenes in it. Monica Vitti looks on the verge of something throughout, but one is not sure what. Harris looks puzzled by everything, maybe by the fact that when he talks Italian comes out, and let's face it, he is a brute of a man, uterly out of place as a company director type. There is a strip tease artist in it, famous and at one point things become oddly fruity and yet it all tails off. A comment on Italian Industry. Not really Blow Up territory.

Antonionis first venture in colour. A magnificent film about contemporary alienation. Criterions has done a tremendous job. It has a reddish quality to it (not found in the otherwise highly reccomendable - region B - BFI edition). It's almost like seeing the film for the first time. And the supplements include Antonionis first two Short films Gente di Po and N.U.It's locked to region A.

Following the success of 'L'avventura', 'La notte', and 'L'eclisse', Antonioni follows up with another study of modern isolation starring his muse Monica Vitti. And, this time, it's in colour.

The best representation of alienation and depression I've seen on film.

Antonioni's use of colour in this film is more subtle than critics tell it but it is visually striking and very beautiful. This film is a great black and white artist's take on colour film-making with all the image art of black and white at its most sophisticated, but in colour. I am surprised that no one else has taken this approach up since. Vitti is at her best in a great performance and Richard Harris is compelling as well, even if dubbed. He is ideally cast and this is also one of his best performances in one of his best films. Apparently the Italians dubbed sound after filming, but this doesn't detract from the film or from this performance. This film is essential for Antonioni fans and for anyone who likes film-making as an art form. It is visually superb. Great DVD quality.

Red Desert (Il deserto rossi, 1964) is filmed in an industrial landscape filled with large machines, oil refinerys, garbage heaps, big buildings and so on. Despite this it is incredibly beautiful. The first shots show an industrial plant out of focus accompained to non-melodic electronic music, and the colours and forms reminds of abstract paintings, and Antonioni was inspired by modern art when he made this. His earlier films, L'Eclisse, L'Avventura and La Notte) also feels like paintings with beautiful compositions, but in Il deserto rossi this is abstract instead of hyper realistic, sometimes just layers of technicolor out of focus. This makes the movie visually unique I think.The story is, I would say, about alienation, and also psychic illness/angst. Monica Vitti plays Guiliana, a young woman who is recovering mentally from a car crash. She doesn't have any good contact with her husband nor her son, and she becomes attracted to a business partner of her husband. This story is framed within the theme of modernity with big industries and business, and how they affect humans - clearly the environments they produce is not healthy, neither physically nor mentally. In the film we never see any 'normal' milieus, as in Antonionis other movies, like the life in an italian city or village. Instead the environment is cluttered and dominated by industry, somtimes a big boat is seen behind some trees or a window, and the only city streets we see are muted grey. This is comically enhanced when in one scene we see a street vendor, and he only sells grey stuff (even the fruits are grey!...I think it is supposed to be fruits...). So the scenes are very stylized, Antonioni even painted the grass in some shots...The transfer of this DVD from Bfi is excellent, and a commentary track by a film scholar is included. Red Desert is a unique movie, and anyone interested in cinema or Antonioni should see or buy it.

I suppose anyone looking at this would already be trying to complete a collection of 1960's iconic films.Out of favour by now, the Red Desert would have its place. Good bit of neo-realism; the superb blighted, polluted backgrounds reflect the blighted, polluted lives of the protagonists.. Low horizon (polluted lakes), big sky, (plumes of orange smoke) and a delightful if screamingly vulnerable Monica Vitti. An impossibly young Richard Harris too, if you can get used to not actually hearing his voice (it's dubbed in Italian).On the other hand if you've come across this by accident, and know something about estuaries (the lower Thames, Medway, Mersey, Clyde), it may say something to you, too.

Admittedly seen in its full glory at the cinema, where it was breathtaking. The lead actress is incredibly beautiful and mysterious in her role. The colour, the sets, the fashion, the scenes, the acting, true art. With gratitude and full credit to the directors and writers, a film full of feeling and understanding and beauty, simply heaven.