Red Desert (1964), directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, begins with an opening credit sequence consisting of out of focus shots of various industrial structures within a foggy, gray landscape. The camera lingers on each shot of the factories in a style reminiscent of Stagecoach (1939), in which the grand landscapes of Monument Valley are established at the beginning of the film. Played over the opening sequence of Red Desert is a nondiegetic vocalization, and the angelic nature of this sound is blended with the diegetic sounds of the factories and machinery in the frame. The sonic focus of this sequence could have been the grating and unpleasant noises of industry, but instead Antonioni chooses to juxtapose the scenes of industry with an almost ethereal vocal track, suggesting the potential for beauty even in this grey, man-made landscape. The rest of the film explores the aesthetic of industrialization and the human ability to either cope or fail to adapt to this changing, modern world.
The first shot after the opening credits is of a flaming oil refinery tower, which suggests both the destructive potential of industrialization and the power and beauty inherent in it. The camera then pans to the right, revealing the rest of this factory landscape. A mass of people inhabits this setting, all of them dressed in greys and blacks. It is then that the protagonist is introduced. Giuliana, played by Monica Vitti, is dressed in green and walks with her young son, who is dressed in yellow. The costumes of these two characters stand in stark contrast to both the extras in the scene as well as the primarily grey color of the setting. Giuliana’s feelings of alienation and her agitated mental state throughout the rest of the film are set up with her costume in this introduction. Her inability to conform and adapt to her environment are reflected by her difference in appearance at the start of the film.
The use of color in the set design is hard to ignore. The sky always seems to be grey, and the walls and streets and buildings that the characters inhabit are primarily grey. Throughout much of the film, Giuliana, often in a state of general mental distress, wanders through a cold, colorless landscape. Near the midpoint of the film, Giuliana finds herself with some friends in a bright red room. The atmosphere in this room becomes very flirtatious, and the characters joke around and drop multiple sexual innuendos. Giuliana, for once, appears to derive some entertainment in this scene, and the vibrant red of the room within the context of these dirty jokes can be seen as representing some sense of primal human spirit and naturalistic passion.
In the penultimate scene of the film, Giuliana wanders into a shipyard, where she attempts to strike up a conversation with a sailor, who does not understand her Italian. As she expresses her feelings of alienation in the scene, she is literally unable to communicate with the man in front of her. In her monologue, Giuliana states that she feels “sort of separated” and that “our bodies are all separate.” Here, the dialogue strongly supports the theme of alienation in the industrial age that Antonioni has illustrated throughout the film. In the final scene, Giuliana walks with her son near the factory that was introduced at the beginning of the film. Poisonous, yellow smoke is seen coming out of the industrial chimneys, and the son asks if a bird would die if it were to fly through the fumes. Giuliana responds by saying that the birds have learned to avoid the yellow smoke. As in the opening of the film, Giuliana wears green, and her son wears a yellow-ish coat. However, while the shots of this factory at the start of the film are almost entirely grey, the closing scene features both the yellow smoke and a mass of green and yellow barrels. These are still images of industrialization, but the fact that they now match the color of Giuliana’s costume suggests that she has finally learned how to adapt to her environment. Like the bird, Giuliana has learned to avoid the poisonous smoke.
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