Red Desert

But if we wanted to have some sort of interpretation on what it's about, then you could say that the these carnivals what are they they are places that attract families there is something that you would go to with a family with kids and so on having a good time and then it's completely abandoned and and so on and that that could add to the interpretation that this is this is her not having having created this family that that society wanted her her to and so yeah but

i guess when it comes to recommending similar films i'd really like to recommend the uh michelangelo antonioni movies especially red desert and i think it's also similar in a way it's also about a woman dealing with certain issues.

It's set in the industrial landscape in Emilia-Romagna in Italy.

And this is a color movie and the way Antonioni works with color is truly fascinating.

And, you know,

you watch you watch Red Desert.

I hate to tell you, none of it's about the people.

It's about the post-industrial...

There's gotta be times when you're just working on your craft or...

That's why I always love Sidney Lumet saying in his book, Making Movies, you know, "I did this many movies because they were passion projects, and I did this handful of movies because I needed the payday, and I did this movie because I got to work with Carlo Di Palma, and I, and I wanted to learn how to shoot color." And he shot Red Desert.

And, you know, so he was really honest about it, and I love that.

And it's like, yeah, if you make 30 films, maybe out of those 30 films 8 of them are true works of art.

You know, I mean, he said, there's a quote from him, "What I'm doing is I'm looking for the traces of feeling in men." He meant the traces of feeling in all people, and it's just sort of like that's what his movies do, you know, the most.

So, you know, I, I, I think that he, up to from those early films like L'ami- L'amici or, and Il Grido through, you know, the trilogy and then Red Desert, um, and Blow Up, the camera is more locked down.

Every composition is extraordinarily precise in terms of color.

We all know the story about him painting the grass in Blow Up so he would get the right color green.

Um, the way that Red Desert is composed, you know, you're looking at fields of color across the screen.

And then Zabriskie Point becomes something quite different where he's working.

You know, the opening of that film, the student meeting, you know, with [clears throat] is shot in a, such a, an interesting way.

I mean, it's just sort of like you go back and look at it and you're like, "Oh, you know, that's pretty accurate." [laughs] And so, you know, I think that, um, uh, it's, it...

Yeah, after you.

I mean, I, you can definitely sense Red Desert and some other An- Antonioni films the way that people are sort of, you know, existing in this space, and yet there's so much menace.

[laughs]

Yeah, on the surface you're like, "Yeah, that's just another day."