Michelangelo Antonioni’s film Red Desert (Il Deserto Rosso) succeeds magnificently in several respects but not across the board. This was his first film in color and what he accomplished with that new element in this film is its most distinctive quality. The film is set in an industrial wasteland of pipes and valves, sulfurous smoke billowing from smokestacks, pools of oil sludge, and rivers where fish smell of petroleum. To this inhospitable setting, Antonioni applies a palette of grays, dull blues, and rust reds to create surrealistic images of pervasive ecological devastation. It looks something like a post-apocalyptic world where not only the color but the warmth and humanity have been systematically leached out. Few films have ever matched the depressing environmental bleakness that Antonioni captures here, although How Green Was My Valley comes to mind as a competitor. Although the characters travel a bit to nearby villages and the coast, there is no relief to be seen anywhere from the repulsively drab surroundings. The obvious messages of looming environmental catastrophe and mankind spoiling its bed here on earth continue to be among the most important themes for artists to hammer on over and over again and Antonioni’s hammering is loud and long. One highly effective tactic adopted by Antonioni is to introduce a sharp contrast. About two-thirds of the way through the film, there is a moment where the protagonist is telling her son a fairytale about a girl in a pristine tropical paradise. As she tells the story, we see the gorgeous azure blue tropical sea, pink coral beaches, and intricately carved stone cliffs. In short, it’s the perfection of unspoiled nature – before our eyes just long enough to remind us of the beauty that existed before industrial pollution.

I also give Antonioni credit for effectively linking the issue of industrial squalor to one of his pet themes – psychological alienation. Like other Antonioni films, Red Desert offers little in the way of narrative, but the story such as it is centers on the psychic distress of a young woman, Guiliana (Monica Vitti). In the opening sequence, we see her walking with her son, Valerio (Valerio Bartoleschi), near the large plant where her husband, Udo (Carlo Chionetti), works as an electrical engineer. She sees a stranger on a picket line of strikers eating a sandwich and walks up to him and asks to buy the remainder of his half-eaten lunch. Then she dashes off behind a bush to wolf it down. Clearly this is not an altogether woman.

Like nearly all of Antonioni’s heroines, Guiliana suffers from existential angst. She feels that nobody understands her or shares her feelings, including her husband. She suffers from that complication of existential isolation that is detachment or dissociation. She feels disconnected from not only her small circle of friends and her husband but also from the natural environment, which has been all but destroyed by pollution. While alienation is also an evident issue in Antonioni’s masterpiece L’Avventura, its chief manifestation for the idle rich was relentless ennui, while for Guiliana, the extent of disorientation reaches clinical proportions. We soon learn from her husband that Guiliana recently suffered a nervous breakdown after a car accident (actually a suicide attempt). While the term nervous breakdown is ambiguous, from the information subsequently revealed, I suspect that Guiliana’s condition would be diagnosed as schizoaffective disorder. She is obviously depressed and there is mention of the doctors advising her to maintain her sense of reality.

Guiliana decides to stop in and visit her husband on the job and encounters a man with whom Udo is negotiating a deal. The man is Corrado Zeller (Richard Harris), a British mining engineer who has come to Italy to recruit a workforce of specialists for a project in Argentina. The workers will have to be away in Argentina without their families for at least a year. Corrado takes an interest in Guiliana and later locates her at the vacant commercial site where Guiliana hopes to establish a shop. Although Corrado’s interest in Guiliana may be partly sexual, I believe he also senses that Guiliana and he are kindred spirits to an extent. Corrado travels continuously for his company, never staying long in any one place. He has no roots. Guiliana, by contrast feels trapped in a bleak world. Their respective problems represent two extreme opposites that each result in feelings of alienation and dissociation. He takes genuine interest in her issues, provides supportive and helpful observations as best he can, and never pressures her into romance or sex, although it is evident now and then that it is on his mind. In the end, it is Guiliana who takes the definitive step that leads to their one quick tryst, which provides neither with much sense of satisfaction. Through all of Guiliana’s angst and machinations, Antonioni masterfully draws the symbolic link between her psychological distress and the images of factory blight and pollution.

That is about as far as the film succeeds: depicting industrial squalor and relating it to psychological alienation. Two main points can’t command undivided attention for over 116 minutes of film time. What’s lacking in this film are story, character development, believable psychodrama, or effective resolution. The lack of a substantial plot is pretty much a given with Antonioni, so it is perhaps unfair to dwell further on that deficiency. The characters in Red Desert are not as fully drawn or believable as those in, say, L’Avventura. Just as we might be cautious about involving ourselves in real life with a person on the verge of major psychiatric problems, we don’t really want to involve ourselves too deeply in Guiliana’s problems. Moreover, the nature of her issues are just not clarified well enough to provide a good psychological study. Then, after about 115 minutes of observing her mental problems, we get about 30 seconds at the very end of a fragmentary resolution. Guiliana is again out walking with her son, as she was when the film opened, when he asks why the smoke is yellow. She explains that it is because it is poisonous. Valerio then asks, “Won’t the birds passing by get killed?” His mother responds that the “Birds learn not to fly there or else they will die.” The optimistic interpretation of that ending is that Guiliana has realized that she must learn not to fly into her zone of angst, alienation, and depression, or she will die. If that’s the intended meaning, it is psychological drivel. Clinical problems like depression or schizophrenia or a mix of the two don’t resolve by a single, simple cognitive insight. The alternative interpretation is that the closing dialog relates not to Guiliana’s issues but to the broader theme of environmental destruction. It may be simply Antonioni saying that humans will need to exercise judgment at least equal to that exhibited by birds and quit poisoning the environment or we will die. If that’s the intended meaning, then the narrative aspect of the film truly went nowhere. The film How Green Was My Valley showed how a strong story could be set in a context of environmental destruction and provide narrative interest while making a strong thematic point about pollution. It’s too bad that Antonioni couldn’t have provided more of a storyline to draw more viewers to his valuable message.

Red Desert came along in 1964, shortly after Antonioni had completed his renowned trilogy of L’Avventura (1960), La Notte (1961) and Eclipse (1962). The range of critical opinion in relation to Monica Vitti’s performance in Red Desert is very wide indeed, from “the best performance of her career” and “outstanding” to “unable to succeed in portraying a deeply disturbed person” and “too obviously a performance.” I don’t feel that the film is effective as a psychodrama, but I don’t fault Vitti’s performance for that deficiency. The blame lies with the script and Antonioni’s steadfast unwillingness to balance his cinematic artistry with narrative. Vitti is decked out as a brunette in this film, whereas she is more typically blond (L’Avventura, La Notte). Richard Harris is otherwise known for roles in The Guns of Navarone (1961), This Sporting Life (1963), Unforgiven (1992), Patriot Games (1992), Gladiator (2000), and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001).

I strongly recommend this film for the atmosphere created by Antonioni’s brilliant use of color and composition. Most viewers will nevertheless find the film tedious and long because of the lack of narrative. Make sure you save it for a night when you’re feeling mellow and laid back. Red Desert is in Italian with English subtitles. It’s a tough film to locate these days but hopefully it will be re-released soon in DVD. I’m sorry to say that the copy I purchased appears to be a bootleg, even though it has a nominal label, since it has no credits whatsoever. I make an honest effort not to buy copies that infringe on copyrights, but some sellers effectively disguise what it is that they are offering.

Recommended:
Yes

Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older