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Red Desert

Il deserto rosso

Italy, France

1964

117 Min
Color
1.85:1
Italian
  • Currently 4.2/5 Stars.
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DIR Michelangelo Antonioni

PROD Antonio Cervi

SCR Michelangelo Antonioni, Tonino Guerra

DP Carlo Di Palma

CAST Monica Vitti, Richard Harris, Carlo Chionetti, Xenia Valderi, Valerio Bartoleschi, Rita Renoir

ED Eraldo Da Roma

PROD DES Piero Poletto

MUSIC Giovanni Fusco, Vittorio Gelmetti

SOUND Claudio Maielli

Venice (Competition): Golden Lion, FIPRESCI Prize

Synopsis

Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1960s panoramas of contemporary alienation were decade-defining artistic events, and Red Desert, his first color film, is perhaps his most epochal. This provocative look at the spiritual desolation of the technological age—about a disaffected woman, brilliantly portrayed by Antonioni muse Monica Vitti, wandering through a bleak industrial landscape beset by power plants and environmental toxins, and tentatively flirting with her husband’s coworker, played by Richard Harris—continues to keep viewers spellbound. With one startling, painterly composition after another—of abandoned fishing cottages, electrical towers, looming docked ships—Red Desert creates a nearly apocalyptic image of its time, and confirms Antonioni as cinema’s preeminent poet of the modern age. –The Criterion Collection

Director

Original

Michelangelo Antonioni

Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni redefined the concept of narrative cinema, challenging the accepted notions at the heart of storytelling, realism, drama, and the world at large; his films – a seminal body of enigmatic and intricate mood pieces – rejected action in favor of contemplation, championing image and design over character and story. Haunted by a sense of instability and impermanence, his work defined a cinema of possibilities, a shifting landscape of thoughts and ideas devoid of resolution; in Antonioni’s world, riddles were not answered, but simply evaporated into other riddles.

Antonioni was born on September 29, 1912, in Ferrara, Italy; as a child, his interests included painting and building architectural models (an interest which continued in the design and decor of his films). After graduating from high school, he attended the University of Bologna, where he initially studied classics but later emerged with a degree in economics. While he was at college… read more

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Samuel Cogrenne likes this

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Michael Harbour

31Mar12

That's two hours that could have been better utilized. An Eric Rohmer movie about people talking can be interesting. A Mike Leigh movie about people talking can be absorbing. Michelangelo Antonioni's "Red Desert" is only of interest when the actors shut up and we can enjoy some good industrial cinematography.

Langston Young likes this

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DT

11Mar12

The narrative is typically introspective but there are several sides to this that make it especially engaging: the piercing industrial soundscape, the grey concrete and chemical wasteland which engulfs the characters’ lives, and the overall sense of alienation which is subsequently captured so clearly, with Monica Vitti’s bubbling psychosis personifying this in a subtle tour-de-force. A strangely sensual and sensuous experience, which I’m surprised so many here reacted poorly to - I’d say it’s actually one of Antonioni’s more immediately satisfying films.

Langston Young likes this

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Franz Walsch

17Feb12

i think this film is one that needs a few watches to take it in completely, my first viewing oscillated between being completely enthralled at times and feeling ambivalent at others.

Deep-Immersion likes this

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Fans

Displaying 5 of 1169 fans.

Articles

Our roundup of essays and articles on this film.
W184

Daily Briefing. Bergman's Videos, Antonioni's Docs and More

By David Hudson on April 6, 2012

Also: Posters for this year’s Directors’ Fortnight and Critics’ Week, “Great Directors” in San Francisco, Picasso in London and more.

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W184

Rockefeller's Melancholy

By Luc Moullet on April 2, 2012

Critic- filmmaker Luc Moullet pens a provocative, previously unpublished take on the difference between the B&W and color work of Antonioni.

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W184

Notebook's 4th Writers Poll: Fantasy Double Features of 2011

By Notebook on January 3, 2012

In our annual poll, we pair our favorite new films of 2011 with older films seen in the same year to create fantastic double features.

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W184

Movie Poster of the Week: “Red Desert”

By Adrian Curry on September 9, 2011

A collection of designs from around the world for Antonioni’s first film in color.

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W184

The Forgotten: Girls on a Motorcycle

By David Cairns on August 26, 2010

"When a director dies, he becomes a cinematographer." That softly devastating one-liner, initially applied, I believe, to Josef von Sternberg

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W184

Images of the Day. Great Title Sequences #1

By Daniel Kasman on June 27, 2010

The opening credits, with the text excised and only the images held (except for the "Tintal" credit, which is inseparable from the image), from

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W184

Kiarostami @ 70, "Red Desert," "Night Train to Munich" and More DVDs

By David Hudson on June 22, 2010

"There was no better filmmaker working at the dawn of the twenty-first century than Abbas Kiarostami," argued Michael J Anderson back

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W184

Antonioni, DVDs, Rediscoveries, Fests

By David Hudson on June 9, 2010

Featured editor Michael Bloom introduces the Michelangelo Antonioni Tribute issue of Offscreen: "[I]t was William Arrowsmith's concept

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Tuesday Morning Foreign Region DVD: "Red Desert" (Antonioni, 1964); Blu-ray edition

By Glenn Kenny on September 22, 2009

Resolved: every video rendition of a film should be transfered and mastered and manufactured with as much technical expertise and care as humanly

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W184

Dread Desert, Part II: a conversation with Lucrecia Martel

By Daniel Kasman on October 23, 2008

J. Hoberman once said that "to not get Bresson is to not get the idea of motion pictures," and that's a fine assertion (and judgment) and all

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Michelangelo Antonioni's RED DESERT Blu-Ray Review

By Twitchfilm.com on May 17, 2011
Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1964 film Red Desert is a bleak exploration of mental illness, alienation and environmental decay. The film is abstract, challenging and is arguably one of the most beautifully
read on Twitchfilm.com

Michelangelo Antonioni's RED DESERT Blu-Ray review

By Twitchfilm.net on June 20, 2010
Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1964 film Red Desert is a bleak exploration of mental illness, alienation and environmental decay. The film is abstract, challenging and is arguably one of the most beautifully
read on Twitchfilm.net

Michelangelo Antonioni's RED DESERT Blu-Ray review

By Twitchfilm.net on June 20, 2010
Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1964 film Red Desert is a bleak exploration of mental illness, alienation and environmental decay. The film is abstract, challenging and is arguably one of the most beautifully
read on Twitchfilm.net

Lists

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Reviews

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Red Desert

By asuraf on July 10, 2010
Antonioni’s first color film, and the last of his famed Monica Vitti ’60’s cycle, this stark, beautifully composed rumination on isolation, loneliness, alienation, madness, science, technology, morality…

Untitled

By Lefteri​s Becerra on August 21, 2009

enorme película. la secuencia de la barraca roja a la que pertenece la foto es magnífica. otro estudio que merece hacerse es el del tema del juego en la obra de antonioni. en esta cinta es estupendo…  read review

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Antonioni's THE RED DESERT

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