Red Desert

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Red Desert (Il Deserto Rosso)
original italian film poster
Directed by	Michelangelo Antonioni
Produced by	Antonio Cervi
Written by	Michelangelo Antonioni Tonino Guerra
Starring	Monica Vitti Richard Harris
Music by	Giovanni Fusco Vittorio Gelmetti
Cinematography	Carlo Di Palma
Editing by	Eraldo Da Roma
Distributed by	Rizzoli (USA)
Release date(s)	4 September 1964 (premiere at VFF) 8 February 1965
Running time	120 min
Country	Italy/France
Language	Italian
IMDb profile

Red Desert (Italian: Il deserto rosso) is a 1964 Italian film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni. It was written by Antonioni and Tonino Guerra and stars Monica Vitti, Richard Harris and others. It is Antonioni's first color film.

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

A young, mentally distressed woman, Giuliana (Monica Vitti), has suffered a car accident. Although she is married to Ugo (Carlo Chionetti), a plant designer, and has a young son, she feels disconnected from the world that surrounds her. She does not know how to connect to it and feels that something in it is terribly wrong. Ugo's friend Zeller (Richard Harris), who came to Ravenna to make a business deal, pursues her attracted by her beauty and enigma. He begins to understand her troubles better than her preoccupied husband, but it is still not enough.

It is a story about the harshness of humanity and its blindness to see the world it created. Only the neurotic Guiliana is awakened, seeing and feeling the profound alienation and suffering it all.

The story is set in the industrial area of Ravenna that decorates cold and silent factories and machines, and a harbour. The visuals are dominated by pastel colors and cold whiteness with smoke and fog covering everything, and the sound design by repetitive ghostly ship horns.