Red Desert

If the basic love story of ‘Hiroshima mon amour’ comes across as less than unique—a brief encounter between doomed lovers—Resnais’ presentation amplifies the romance to make it something special.

The Conversation is a new feature at Sound on Sight bringing together Drew Morton and Landon Palmer in a passionate debate about cinema new and old. For their third piece, they will discuss Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow Up. **** Landon’s Take: The cultural impact of Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow Up would be very difficult to overemphasize. Upon release, Andrew …

“L’eclisse” is the third film in Michelangelo Antonioni’s so-called “Trilogy of Alienation,” the preceding works having been “L’avventura” and “La notte.” While the three films taken together do explore many of the same themes relating to spiritual emptiness, the disbanding of relationships, and a struggle to communicate in an increasingly modern and alienating world, “L’eclisse” differs from the two earlier works most notably in its increasingly experimental style and its blatant departures from conventional storytelling and stylistic design.

The first time we see Monica Vitti’s character Giuliana, the Italian woman whose mental struggle with her environment is chronicled in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Red Desert (1964), she is an olive-green figure walking along a black, desolate wasteland. This green, a symbol of nature and tranquility, contrasts with the orange flames pulsing from the factory and …