Il Deserto Rosso

Michelangelo Antonioni’s stunning mid-career masterpiece, and his first film in color, gives another provocative look at the spiritual desolation of the technological age and is therefore regarded as a companion piece to his trilogy of 1960s classics on contemporary alienation. Il Deserto Rosso tells the story of a disaffected woman (startlingly portrayed by Antonioni’s 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. With one startling, painterly composition after another – of abandoned fishing cottages, electrical towers, looming docked ships – Il Deserto Rosso creates a nearly apocalyptic image of its time.

This film is part of our tribute to Monica Vitti.