Guiliana, a housewife married to the plant manager, Ugo, is mentally ill, hiding it from her husband as best she can. Read more …
She meets Zeller, an engineer en route to Patagonia to set up a factory. He pursues her, they join friends for a dinner party of sexual play, then, while Ugo is away on business, she fears that her son has polio. When she discovers the boy is faking, she goes to Zeller, panicked that no one needs her. He takes advantage of her distress, and she is again alone and ill.
Non-fans may find it all a bit slow and pretentious.
Red Desert is Antonioni’s clearest, most striking statement of purpose – and one of cinema’s great films.
Almost half a century on, Red Desert remains a film of rare beauty and brooding erotic intensity.
What a mysterious film it is, with much to perplex and even exasperate, but much to fascinate as well.
As an experimental film about the effect of industrialization on a sensitive woman, Red Desert works well enough, but as a piece of storytelling, it's stark and impenetrable.
A strikingly original, melancholy work executed with painterly precision and still one of the more underrated films from this innovative director.
A stunningly beautiful and evocative use of colour and setting.
This flawed masterpiece.
Edinburgh Filmhouse, Edinburgh from Friday September 7, 2012, until Sunday September 9, 2012. More info: www.filmhousecinema.com
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