Il Deserto Rosso

Michelangelo Antonioni, 1964
Another absolute masterwork
less interested in fragmented space, more simple one-eighty switches (bit of fragments)
crossing one way, then the other. Long straight roads
the framings/ colourings really make this
framings on the wide frame, show seperation
lost in the fog, overlapping characters, when rarely happens, is crucial (sensual)
generally, mix with colour into backdrops
the unsaturated, post-indistrial wasteleands wandered around are generally mirrored
and then you have the attempts at something else; the red colour (but that is bleak)
bright colours that shock Vitti are that kind of idiotic, machine like sensibility/ fake vibrancy
the red scene in the cabin has the attempt at sexuality of bourgeois, but is really childlike
this is the most obvious political moment, with the inversion of the worker's tones (more 'real'?)
Vitti, incredbile again, as unable to cope with the disgusting colours and life
only escape in illness (son better off when ill, bombarding with questions?)
loneliness of this though; and move to the dream sequence
saturated colours have a utopia, but a lone utopia
this is intersected by singing- and correlate of singing for Vitti in screaming, warped electronics
some kind of sound in that horror itself
a few, not as many individual time-images as 'L'Eclisse', a bit more difficult and lacking the spatial play
but has its own genius
two out of two masterpieces from Antonioni.