Il deserto rosso
| Red Desert | |
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Original Italian film poster
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| Directed by | Michelangelo Antonioni |
| Produced by | Antonio Cervi Angelo Rizzoli |
| Written by |
Michelangelo Antonioni Tonino Guerra |
| Starring |
Monica Vitti Richard Harris |
| Music by |
Giovanni Fusco Vittorio Gelmetti |
| Cinematography | Carlo Di Palma |
| Edited by | Eraldo Da Roma |
| Distributed by | Rizzoli (USA) |
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Release date
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Running time
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120 minutes |
| Country | Italy/France |
| Language | Italian |
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, Antonioni's 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 L'Avventura (1960), La Notte (1961), and L'Eclisse (1962).
In Ravenna, Italy, Giuliana (Monica Vitti) is walking with her young son, Valerio, towards the petrochemical plant managed by her husband, Ugo. Passing workers who are on strike, Giuliana nervously and impulsively purchases a half-eaten sandwich from one of the workers. They are surrounded by strange industrial structures and debris that create inhuman images and sounds. Inside the plant, Ugo (Carlo Chionetti) is talking with a visiting business associate, Corrado Zeller (Richard Harris), who is looking to recruit workers for an industrial operation in Patagonia, Argentina. Ugo and Corrado converse comfortably in the noisy factory. Ugo tells Corrado that his wife, Giuliana, had a recent auto accident, and though she was physically unhurt, she has not been right mentally. That night in their apartment, Giuliana becomes highly agitated and fearful over a dream she had about sinking in quicksand. Ugo is unable to calm her or understand what she's experiencing.
Attracted to Giuliana, Corrado visits her at an empty shop she's 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 love—a 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.
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Wikipedia