A lot of fun.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

From the first time I saw "Red Desert", I discovered it as a portrait of a state. it coult be defined as alienation. but, in essence, it has not name. Giuliana is just a symbol of a deep form of solitude. the film represents only a travel across the rooms of the state, from the industrial places, laughings, family scenes, confessions, meetings, jokes, steps near the other, projects and memories. a film about the area of a large crisis. and not the story becomes significant scene by scene, but the art of Michelangelo Antonioni to translate one of the most gray forms of interior silences. because "Red desert" is a portrait. precise to cruel. for a state. defining our world so complete.

Another film with the "Antonioni brand". Little (apparently) happens, slow pace, long scenes without any dialogues (Brian De Palma saw for sure Antonioni's films ...), some things (seemingly) pointless, improved and obsessive technique in sound and image. As for us, those of us who have an open mind and who truly enjoy the art of cinema, we simply love and are dazzled by what we see. Excellent performance by Monica Vitti.

Some film review books claim Antonioni's best work was all shot in monochrome and thereafter he was less effective, but this movie easily dispels that argument. Colour gives him an extra tool with which to elaborate his familiar themes of alienation and failing relationships. It's the best work I've seen by this darling- director of the art-house set. The use of colour, the eerie locations, the juxtaposition of almost horrific industrial installations belching coloured smoke with deserted ancient Italian streets and the electronic soundtrack (hard to call it a score as such)is disturbing and arresting. The natural world is grey and brown, the man-made elements are primary coloured, invasive and overpowering. Within this landscape, fizzing and gurgling with pollution and decay we find an unhinged engineers wife who's recovering poorly from a car accident and struggling to cope the responsibility of motherhood and being the wife of a man tied up with his career. Some reviewers pour scorn on Monica Vitti's performance in this difficult and complex lead role. Does she over act? Is she hamming it up? I'd prefer to think that she's playing the part of a woman on the edge, torn in different directions at a moment of emotional weakness, without the mental strength to comprehend how odd her behaviour actually is - in short, she's playing it right. Although it must me said her face is unusually immobile in every role she plays so if her body language might be considered over- the-top her facial expression certainly never is. And she has a distinct air of fragility about her. Richard Harris as the 'other man' in her life is an odd choice for the role. Clearly speaking English dialogue but dubbed over by an Italian-speaking actor, and thus lacking the familiar husky lilting tones one expects to hear. He's rather gloomy,but then so is everyone in this film! His character's presence seems only to push Vitti's closer to the abyss, adding another element of unhappiness and uncertainty to her tormented life.It's not, as you've no doubt deduced, a happy film, in any way, but it has a rhythm and style which will keep you watching and unlike Antonioni's previous films there is a certain structure which makes it more more accessible. Perhaps in being set among working people (although far from 'working class') as opposed to the 'idle rich' of films like L'AVENTTURA, gives it more gravitas? Frankly the navel-gazing of poor-me-life-is-such-a-bore characters of those films makes them much harder to care about than fragile frustrated Vitti in RED DESERT. For the immaculate visual style and striking use of colour alone, this film is well worth the effort (and it is sometimes an effort)of watching but the story line and Vitti's character also make it worth listening to. One curiosity - why the clearly intentional scenes shot out-of-focus? Bizarre and entirely pointless as far as I could see, but a minor quibble.

Red Desert is a beautifully shot film about that ever-modern problem of alienation in the face of progress. Michelangelo Antonioni is as interested in obscuring images as he is capturing them: he periodically drifts his action out of focus, and in one of the film's most masterful scenes, places a dense layer of fog between his principals and his camera, fading them into just barely visible silhouettes. Antonioni also demonstrates a masterful command of color: his stark yellows and reds jump out from his gloomy grey world with all the menace of a poisonous animal. As the film reaches its climax, it becomes increasingly dissonant and disorienting--in all the best ways, of course. Red Desert is a great film; it captures the common angst of modernity with an uncommon mastery of Mise-en-scène and cinematography.