Identificazione di una donna (Identification of a Woman) (1982)

62% of critics liked it
(13 reviews)
61% of users liked it
(440 ratings)

A divorced middle-aged Italian film director (Tomas Millian) is seeking meaning and love in both his life and his film. He becomes involved with an aristocratic woman, but trouble ensues when he begins to receive anonymous threats demanding that he abandon the relationship. When the woman… More A divorced middle-aged Italian film director (Tomas Millian) is seeking meaning and love in both his life and his film. He becomes involved with an aristocratic woman, but trouble ensues when he begins to receive anonymous threats demanding that he abandon the relationship. When the woman mysteriously disappears, the director begins seeing an actress who works in experimental plays. She too leaves after telling him that she is carrying another man's child. In his quest for meaning, all the director manages to find is meaningless sex and lots of metaphors for isolation and abandonment: fog, open doors, empty landscapes. ~ John Voorhees, Rovi

Rating, Runtime: Unrated, 2 hr. 9 min.
Directed By: Michelangelo Antonioni
Written By: Gérard Brach, Michelangelo Antonioni, Tonino Guerra
Genres: Drama, Romance

In Theaters: Oct 21, 1982 Wide
On DVD: Jul 18, 2000

Critic Reviews

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
The most openly erotic of Antonioni's features, and visually one of the most beautiful.
Vincent Canby, New York Times
Identification of a Woman is an excrutiatingly empty work. It's also beautiful and sad -- virtually a parody of the director's great L'Avventura and some of his other earlier films.
Edward Guthmann, San Francisco Chronicle
There's a very good reason this moody, atmospheric effort was never released in the United States until now -- it isn't very good.
Sean Axmaker, Turner Classic Movies Online
... a film filled with mysteries that are never resolved and images that are simultaneously lonely and lovely.
Glenn Heath Jr., Slant Magazine
Traversing the frayed cinema of Michelangelo Antonioni can be a confounding and immersive experience, and his late-period melodramatic oddity Identification of a Woman is a perfect example why.
Fernando F. Croce, CinePassion
Antonioni's autumnal ruminating, frank about the role of sex in relationships yet now playful and relaxed in mellow acknowledgement of career-long themes
, TV Guide's Movie Guide
This is a respectable return by Antonioni to familiar thematic ground -- the impossibility of maintaining relationships in the contemporary world -- helped by a fine ironic underpinning and smoothly assured visuals.
Geoff Andrew, Time Out
A refreshing irony prevents the hardened art house pundit from wallowing in nostalgia and the metaphysics of 'portentous messages'.
, Film4
If Antonioni ultimately fails he deserves full marks for setting out on this adventure.
Jeremiah Kipp, ToxicUniverse.com
...uneasy and difficult to pin down, like the paranoia of a dream.
Jeffrey M. Anderson, Combustible Celluloid
Identification of a Woman is not an easy film, but it's a most welcome addition to Antonioni's canon.
Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews
A lugubrious story.
Christopher Null, Filmcritic.com
Michelangelo Antonioni's 1982 film Identification of a Woman never saw release...and now we know why!

Read all 13 critic reviews

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Featured Audience Ratings

Cassandra M

A very beautiful film with that special Antonioni atmosphere. I can identify with the feeling of emptiness and the people who can´t really communicate with each other. Modern life and adulthood seems shallow and a bit soulless. You have to fill it with something and make it human… More
A very beautiful film with that special Antonioni atmosphere. I can identify with the feeling of emptiness and the people who can´t really communicate with each other. Modern life and adulthood seems shallow and a bit soulless. You have to fill it with something and make it human again. The first time I saw it I was disapointed but it improved greatly with the second viewing and I want to see it again. There are new things to discover each time as with all of Antonionis´ films.