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Rating: After Night of '61 and Eclipse of '62, two masterpieces, Antonioni directs his first color film in '64: RED DESERT and wins the GOLDEN LION IN VENICE.
FROM WIKIPEDIA NOTES:
Giuliana, wife of Ugo, an industrial executive, is depressed and tormented; her sense of dissatisfaction and inadequacy, which has pushed her to the brink of suicide, shows no sign of abating, compounded by her husband's absence and the alienation of a modernity devoid of authentic meaning.
Engineer Corrado Zeller, a friend and colleague of Ugo, seems to be the only one capable of penetrating the mystery and isolation in which Giuliana finds herself…
If THE BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN is a colossal crap, RED DESERT IS AN OCEAN OF SHIT!
If THE BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN is like being hit with a brick, RED DESERT IS A NON-STOP STONING FOR 120 MINUTES!
RED DESERT for me is and will ALWAYS be the worst film of all time, compounded by the fact of having won prestigious awards and it represents the SEAL and THE SUM of my thoughts on how right and precise and legitimate and UNDENIABLE my theory on ART IS CRAP is, declined in all the negative connotations possible and imaginable. The DAMAGE it can do and has done, is all here! ALL!
In an ideal world, at Venice, they should have whipped Antonioni with wet chicory and instead they gave him the Golden Lion! I don’t know why it happened, probably because he was already an established great director. There may be other reasons, I suppose, but I don't want to know them, I don't want to know anything about anything. In an ideal world, at the announcement of the award, an armed commando should have mowed down all the judges with machine gun fire leaving a red desert, yes, but of blood!
It starts strong right from the opening credits. There's this track, there's this woman singing AAAA... oooo... uuuuu... AAAAAAAAAAAA! It doesn’t promise anything good... it’s disorientating.
Nothing ever happens in the film and it happens BADLY.
Monica Vitti plays the CRAZY woman but she doesn’t even believe it herself. It’s EMBARRASSING how she acts psychotic with flashes of clarity, it’s SHAMEFUL she acts BAD AWFULLY! Never seen such a MONICA VITTI like this and never will I see her again, thank God... TOTAL DISCOMFORT!
The dialogues are an APPALLING AND INCOHERENT MESS.
The film continuously spins its wheels; all the actors are visibly frozen, even poor engineer Zeller who immediately falls for Giuliana and stares, follows her, talks to her, tries to understand her but it’s all so absurd and BORING.
The dialogues... the “DIALOGUES”? it’s all disjointed, it’s an UNSPEAKABLE mess, I don’t want to quote ANYTHING, one shouldn't spoil the SHIT, you have to touch it with your own hands, you have to get dirty, you have to taste it.
You will have to see with your own eyes and SUFFER LIKE DOGS in the first good 20 minutes where it’s just him and her doing and saying NOTHING.
You will have to see with your own eyes and SUFFER LIKE DOGS in the following 20 minutes or maybe more... the long sequence in the shack by the harbor where lying on the bed THEY DO THINGS SAY THINGS. How she goes mad afterwards when they leave THE BAG THE BAAAAG! THE VIRUS! Or, going back, in the shack... I ALSO HEARD A SCREAM!... but no, what are you saying? YES YES SHE HEARD IT TOO!... no, I said I think I heard it! WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU THINK???
EEEEEEEH... how can you not say at least SOMETHING? But no, I must restrain myself YOU MUST SEE IT!
MY HAIR HURTS!
I won’t give stars because even one star is too much. It's ZERO STARS.
HOPE YOU REALLY SEE IT...
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