168 - Identification of a Woman, 1982, Italy. Dir. Michelangelo Antonioni.

Saturday, June 17, 2017

168 - Identification of a Woman, 1982, Italy.  Dir. Michelangelo Antonioni.

It is 1982.

Michelangelo Antonioni is older.

This means we get to see the work of a great artist whose technical mastery has gotten better with age.

Images composed by one of the finest craftsman to have worked in the form. With many a frame a work of art.  And many a frame a work of architecture.  Beginning with the opening frame.  Where the wall is the floor.  And continuing throughout the film.  With all those doorframes.  And windowframes. And mirror frames.  And archways.  And staircases.  Seagulls in the in the mirror in the half-pie window in the background.  Old brick.  New steel.  Dashes and splashes of color in the clothing.  The camera in brilliantly placed locations. Moving deftly from one composition to the other.  At all angles.  In all directions.

It also means we are now subjected to bad grandpa jokes.

And hideous hairstyles.

And silly foregrounding of the latest in telephone technology.

And terrible synthesizer music.  No offense to John Foxx of Ultravox, but this score is not fit for an elevator.  And sure enough, this is the only feature film for which he ever composed.

Antonioni is so good at what he does that he can do it in his sleep.

Unfortunately, he did.

He made this movie while sleeping.

And the viewer wishes he could get a hold of the director by the lapels and shake him vigorously while shouting, "Wake up, man!"

Because there is more to making a movie than technical mastery of production design and camera framing.

You might also want to have something to say.

And a story in which to say it.

When Antonioni released l'Avventura in 1960, ennui was all the rage.  Hey, look at me--I'm bored! See how sophisticated that makes me?  I can have sex without love, adventure without caring, a world without God, life without meaning.  I can dare to make my way precipitously close to the abyss!

But twenty-something years later?

Undergraduate posturing does not look so good on a middle-aged man.

Most people grow up.

And make choices.  And commit to things.  Things like relationships and families, vocations and causes, faith and community, sports and hobbies.  Having friends.  Going out to eat.  Being a productive member of society.

Niccolo has none of the above.  He lives the life of the restless wanderer.  In his fifties.

If only he had his mother's basement to move into.

He tells us that he is a movie director, but we never see him do any work.

He just sits around looking for an idea and for a woman to play in it.  Hmmm . . . What to do?  What to do?

This man is so indecisive he does not even measure out his life with coffee spoons.

He does have a lot of meaningless sex.  And you wonder if perhaps the director had the actresses remove their clothes mercifully to divert our eyes away from their haircuts.

(On a technical note, Antonioni uses shirts and jackets to frame the body in masterful ways.  He is ever the framer.)

This is a good movie for burgeoning filmmakers to watch with the sound--and subtitles!--turned off in order to focus on composition.

But do not look for a story.

It is lost in the fog.