Red Desert (film)

Red Desert Italian Il deserto rosso is a 1964 Italian film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and starring Monica Vitti with Richard Harris. Written by Antonioni and Tonino Guerra, the film is about a woman trying to survive in the modern world of cultural neurosis and existential doubt. Red Desert, Antonionis first color film, is renowned for stunningly colored industrial landscapes which express the unease, alienation, and vivid perceptions of the main character. The working title was Celeste e verde Sky blue and green. Il deserto rosso was awarded the Golden Lion at the 25th Venice Film Festival in 1964. This was the last in a series of four films he made with Vitti between 1959 and 1964, preceded by LAvventura 1960, La Notte 1961, and LEclisse 1962.

Attracted to Giuliana, Corrado visits her at an empty shop shes planning to open and talks about his life and the restless nature of his existence. She accompanies him to Ferrara on one of his worker recruitment drives, and she indirectly reveals details about her mental state. She tells him that when she was in the hospital, she met a young woman patient who was advised by her doctors to find someone or something to lovea husband, a son, a job, even a dog. She speaks of the young woman feeling like there was no ground beneath her, like she was sliding down a slope, sinking, always on the verge of drowning. They travel to a radio observatory in Medicina, where Corrado hopes to recruit a top worker. Surrounded by cold industrial architecture, Giuliana seems lost in her loneliness and isolation.The following weekend, Giuliana, Ugo, and Corrado are walking beside a polluted estuary where they meet up with another couple, Max and Linda, and together they drive to a small riverside shack at Porto Corsini where they meet Emilia. They spend time in the shack engaged in trivial small talk filled with jokes, roleplaying, and sexual innuendo. Giuliana seems to find temporary solace in these mindless distractions. A mysterious ship docks directly outside their shack, and as she looks out to the open sea, Giuliana confides to Corrado, I cant look at the sea for long or I lose interest in whats happening on land. During their conversations, Corrado and Giuliana have grown closer, and he shows interest and sympathy for her. Like Giuliana, Corrado is also alienated, but he is better adapted to and accepting of his environment, telling her, You wonder what to look at I wonder how to live. When a doctor arrives to board the ship, Giuliana, seeing that the ship is now quarantined due to an infectious disease, rushes off in a state of panic. Her unwillingness to stay, or to return to the shack to retrieve the purse she left behind, underscores her state of alienation from the others.

Source: Wikipedia