Il deserto rosso (Red Desert) poster & wallpaper

Monica Vitti, Richard Harris, Carlo Chionetti

Cold, rain, and fog surround a plant in Ravenna. Factory waste pollutes local lakes; hulking anonymous ships pass or dock and raise quarantine flags. Guiliana, a housewife married to the plant manager...( read more  read more... ), Ugo, is mentally ill, hiding it from her husband as best she can. 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.

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88% liked it

3,694 ratings

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100% liked it

8 critics

Unrated, 116 min.

Directed by: Michelangelo Antonioni

Release Date: February 8, 1964

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DVD Release Date: September 21, 1999

Stats: 161 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (161)

  • columbiatch
    July 1, 2009
    columbiatch
    Antonioni's most experimental film. The aesthetic choices such as the use of color and shallow focus were used beautifully to achieve a cold and sterile effect. It also features Monica Vitti in her most neurotic performance.
  • Cinema101
    May 15, 2006
    Cinema101
    8/10
  • shannylee38
    December 20, 2006
    shannylee38
    Use of color and electronic sound create the perfect state of mind of the disturbed woman.
  • ElCochran90
    November 13, 2009
    ElCochran90
    - I feel my eyes tearing up. What should I do with my eyes? What should I watch?
    - You ask what you should watch. I ask how I should live. It's the same thing.

    Il Deserto Rosso (1964)


    Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
    ...( read more)>Country: Italy / France
    Genre: Drama
    Length: 120 minutes

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    After concluding his unofficial "Incomunicability Trilogy", Michelangelo Antonioni directs his first feature film in color and strangely adapts a much more experimental tone. However, he does not deviate from the usual existentialist and thought-provoking subject matter he was used to portray. In Il Deserto Rosso, the same thematic elements are treated in a much less accessible form, yet it has the striking ability of inserting several symbolisms throughout and adds a mental sickness that, humanly, is ultimately impossible to control. It may not be as masterful as his previous three films, but the experimental branch of filmmaking has always been a daring way of expressing ideas regardless of the decade such films were directed in.

    Monica Vitti, the now considerably famous Italian star, plays the role of a woman who possesses a rather strong neurosis. She is married to a plant manager named Hugo, surrounded by a cold environment full of fog and industrialization. Her main concerns are hiding her mental condition from her husband and taking care of her son who seemingly has polio. In the process, she meets an engineer named Zeller who is heading to Patagonia and is abducted into a dinner party of sexual play and controversial discussions.

    If the female characters of Monica Vitti that were assigned by Antonioni in previous filmic projects could form one single troubled woman, Il Deserto Rosso conglomerates them and takes such characteristics to an extreme. If such technique was not enough, Antonioni constructs an environment full of a cold and lifeless emptiness. Of course, this is the most predominant symbolism that resembles the already confused personality of Giuliana. The rest of the characters accomplish to take her to a more consolidated state of perdition, a series of events that leads her to the horrendous conclusion portrayed. The use of color and effectively odd electronic sound effects is a daring change of technique regarding the particular filmic style of Antonioni. The cinematography, although not as gracious as one would expect, allows to pay attention to a detailed industrial world.

    Instead of focusing on the characters, we are offered clues for slowly revealing the true personalities of the persons that are shown throughout. Fog constantly surrounds the flesh and objects, putting their perspective and sight into shadows... event their own existence. It almost leads Giuliana to a tragic accident. After a particular series of events, Giuliana finds out that she is no longer needed. It is this lack of feeling important the one that strengthens a meaningless existence. One as a conventional viewer may attribute the guilt and injustice of the situation towards a mental condition but, once again, Antonioni has more layers of complexity. The result is an atmospheric drama, a drama that has a beautiful story told to the son of Giuliana about a girl who lives in the sea and hears voices... voices of everybody. These are the voices that even we as human beings desperately expect to hear because of an attention that we want to get. Even so, the short length of the screenplay compensates its brilliance.

    Il Deserto Rosso is an experimental and hard-to-digest drama, and a worth-watching addition in Antonioni's filmography. Her acting abilities are still extraordinary and the direction has not lost its influential originality and talent. The symbolic meanings are still ethereal delicacies, and the approach towards the mind of a disturbed female may be a world full of incomprehensible elements. After all, how incomprehensible can it be if it is already incomprehensible in its lucidest state of sanity?

    87/100
  • kurosawian
    March 19, 2008
    kurosawian
    Antonioni's first color film. Cinema was never the same again. Once again, Antonioni takes his cinematic language to new heights. The story pulls you into its web like a compelling dream.
  • starkafka
    September 24, 2007
    starkafka
    monica vitti is amazing.

    how does it feel when no one seems to understand you?

    1 + 1 = 1.
  • siavashasadollahi
    September 12, 2007
    siavashasadollahi
    didn't understand a minute!! :D
  • daghka
    August 20, 2007
    daghka
    An extremely difficult movie to bear, very sterile and cutting this was and the way that Monica Vitti goes through her life, her artificial cold life and bears it, a lack of emotions, and we see the distraught, I don't know how to say this, but I was really disturbed and strucked...( read more) by this movie.
  • goblue
    July 22, 2007
    goblue
    The most beautiful fantasy I've ever seen.
  • passemoelepoivre
    July 8, 2007
    passemoelepoivre
    Great artsy film, will review it more later...

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