The Red Desert (1964/Madman DVD Region 4 PAL Import)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: B Film: B
PLEASE NOTE: This DVD can only be operated on
machines capable of playing back DVDs that can handle Region Four/4 PAL format
software and can be ordered from our friends at Madman Entertainment at the
website address provided at the end of the review. Cover image ©RIZZOLI 1964
After his
landmark trilogy of complex Italian Neo-Realist films in black and white (L’avventura, La notte, L’eclisse),
Michelangelo Antonioni made his first color film in what would be another
extraordinary trilogy of rich, existential works that continued his run as one
of the most important filmmakers in the world.
The Red Desert
(1964, aka Il deserto rosso) stars
Antonioni alumni and internationally known (thanks to her work with Antonioni)
Monica Vitti as the lost, troubled, unhappy Giuliana. She has vast interior and exterior emptiness
to deal with as she walks through the active factory space that denatures
people (with her son at her side) and their environment, but it is also a state
she can identify with and her sense of self is in deep trouble.
In
addition to barely holding on as a mother, there is her husband Ugo (Carlo
Chionetti) who runs the plant that is dealing with a strike, meaning the
distraction of a false progress is on hold.
When his associate Zeller (Richard Harris) shows up, he starts to find
her more interesting than any of the business at hand and she has so many
problems (she recently tried to commit suicide) that she may be lost beyond
anyone or anything, no matter what treatments
may be available. Antonioni had taken
Neo-Realism as far as it could go and was on his own charting such new
territory.
Many find
the film boring, but others see it for the fine film it is and I think years of
bad video copies and not enough good film prints out there have tarnished its
image and made people forget how fine a film it really is. From here, Antonioni moved to the surprise
international success of his 1966 classic Blow
Up and highly underrated masterwork Zabriskie
Point, the name of another desert, but Red Desert
holds up extremely well and then some 46 years later and counting. If you have not seen the film, you need to
catch up to it along with Antonioni’s other output if you are serious about
film.
The anamorphically
enhanced 1.66 X 1 image is much better than the long out-of-print U.S. Image
Entertainment DVD and comes from a restored print, looking like it. The only thing is, the color was originally
issued in three-strip, dye-transfer Technicolor prints and this is not that
kind of print, as it comes directly from original camera materials and the
like. Besides the limits of DVD (even as
good as the PAL format can be), this is fine color, but not how extraordinary a
real Technicolor print would be.
Director of Photography Carlo Di Palma’s work here is amazing in
compositions, complex use of color (anything that needed repainted was, no
matter how hard or unusual, like a wall or building) and depth throughout,
forwarding a narrative that offers limited dialogue. Some softness and minor staircasing hold back
our rating, while some shots are impressive.
The Dolby
Digital 2.0 Mono is far superior to the harsh, shrill versions we have heard in
the past, all cleaned up and showing off one of the smartest, most complex
monophonic soundtracks of any film of the time.
The use of sound effects (including industrial sounds ahead of their
time) is overwhelming to make its points and ambiance also pushes the story
forward. Giovanni Fusco’s score is
another plus and though this could have been upgraded to 5.1, it just works
better this way.
Extras
include a feature-length audio commentary track by film scholar Ronaldo Caputo
to be heard after you (re-)watch the film, trailers for other key foreign films
by other key directors, text on Antonioni inside the DVD case and vintage
featurette Michelangelo Antonioni: A
Portrait. Madman has done justice to
the film as best they could and this will be as good a DVD as we will see on
it.
As noted
above, you can order this PAL DVD import exclusively from Madman at:
https://www.madman.com.au/actions/channel.do?method=view
-
Nicholas Sheffo
