Red Desert, Part 2

1. An important point about Antonioni’s ‘Red Desert’ is that we should not jump to conclusions about the film’s central message. Antonioni himself has been troubled by the unintentional (or intentional) misunderstanding of the film, and he has stressed repetitively in interviews about what he was trying to say in ‘Red Desert’. Especially for the detractors, they would easy engage in cherry picking and said the film’s stance was anti-technology, anti-nature or even anti-progress, which were all rebutted by the director. The detractors simply have failed to see the big picture.

2. I feel that the stance posed by ‘Red Desert’ is remarkably similar to that of ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, because the above labels could also be used by its detractors to attack the sci-fi classic. Both Antonioni and Kubrick were never against technology from the beginning. What they have delivered in common was a balanced point-of-view about technology and progress and how that might impact humanity and inspire changes. For both filmmakers, if you want to understand more about the human condition, you should not turn away from the problematic issues, even if they originate from well-intended motivations.

3. Though Antonioni did celebrate that humanity has the power to master and control nature, he was not at all oblivious to the consequences of that. He was indeed viewing the issue in a very realistic stance. As he stated in another interview, each era has demanded sacrifices upon which other things were built. There is no evolution without crisis. Antonioni appreciated the problem that arose from any form of progress, and demanded the audience not to retreat or run away from them. Before we think about the big questions, let’s deal with a bit of psychology first.

4. Giuliana seemed to have the ability to see things in a unique way. Yet, the heightened sensation might just be subjective (and probably delusional) point of view from Giuliana, suggesting she might have some form of mental illness. Antonioni, on the other hand, did not provide any clue about an impartial perspective, therefore the audience has no clue whose (or which) point of view was the correct one that points to reality? Certainly, this was the style that Antonioni employed in many of his films, as an allusion to Nietzsche’s philosophy.

5. And, I believe there is a vision that Antonioni has been always delivering, much like that of Dreyer and Bergman as I will discuss in later articles – that in real life there is only a thin line because vivid imaginations and potential psychosis. When you see something so different from other people, as Orson Welles would have put it, ‘he / she is either a genius or a complete idiot’. Moreover, it is rather ironic that Giuliani’s idealistic thought - the island she was mentioning in her story was the only one that seemed to reconcile with any attributes grounded in reality, as least the way the audience would find comfortable with. The colors in the sequence were natural, not deliberately deformed or heightened in any way.

6. Objectively, Ugo, Giuliana’s husband, was quite concerned that she has probably contacted some sort of mental illness and therefore she was not acting quite right. Worse still, Giuliana was distressed by a nightmare involving herself sinking in quicksand. This aspect is interesting because it reminds me of another 1964 film from the East, Hiroshi Teshigahara’s ‘Woman in the Dunes’, which I have talked about before. That film was also surrealistic and dealt with existential issues, and I am not sure that is a mere coincidence or maybe there is some inspiration between the two. The content of the dream was not random, it was quite deliberate. When Giuliana was hospitalized before that, she heard an anecdote from a woman that she was afraid of drowning because she felt that was no ground beneath her, as if she was sliding down a slope. Later on, when courting with Corrado, she expressed that she couldn’t look at the sea – though she liked the feeling of it – because she would lose interest on the land - which was what her issue seemed to originate. This is a very nice analogy because the very act of ‘drowning’ was like the unquestioning and conformity to the situations people found themselves in. Giuliana seemed to be aware of the existential ennui, no matter how sick she might be judged by psychiatry, that she had to get away from this turmoil.

7. What is quite obvious, though, was that Giuliana’s real issue originated from her isolation and alienation from the world around her. Not only the modernizing environment has led to her distress, she found it hard to find a true and lasting relationship from others, including her family. The people around her might have offered some possible distractions – sex, politics, material possessions, or mindless RPGs – but any of them would not lead to a better status for her. She had the responsibility to figure it out for herself.

8. The memorable fog scene signifies the existential angst of many characters of Antionioni’s films in general. In the scene, characters appear and disappear amidst the fog, as if not certain of who they are, and what their individual identities lead them to. The very fact that the characters are widely separated in the scene separated the inevitable loneliness inside every one of us, the isolation inherent in the individualism of humanity. This memorable scene was Antonioni’s poetic portrayal of the human condition we must all confront at some point.

9. Corrado, who was Ugo (Giuliana’s husband)’s business partner, was an interesting character. While he was not a model character – there were no model characters in an Antonioni film – he was at least concerned with Giuliana’s plight and was willing to connect with her. Like everybody else, he was also in a state of alienation, but he was a bit more open to interact with his surroundings and has always attempted to look for a solution. He told Giuliana "You wonder what to look at; I wonder how to live." So, he was exploring the attitude to live for a meaningful life. His voyage to Argentina symbolized a possible solution to counteract the existential crisis – to simply run away / escape from the situation. But is it the right way to go?

10. Antonioni disagreed. He felt that the right attitude was not to long for the more primitive times, with the belief that it was a more natural landscape for man. Nor was it to escape from the painful condition. This is best illustrated in the final minutes of the film. When Giuliana and Valerio were walking near his husband’s industrial plant, a stream of exotic yellow smoke was shooting out. And while Valerio wondered whether the birds would be harmed by the poisonous smoke, Giuliana gave an answer that showed she was enlightened regarding her situation. The birds did not just escape or never came back, rather, they figured out a way to get around the poisonous smoke, so that they could be suited to the ever-changing environment. Antonioni believed this flexible attitude was something that we had to develop to meet the changes we encounter in the modern age.

11. Antonioni also believed in hope from the younger generations, like Bergman in ‘The Silence’. Giuliana’s son, Valerio, had a fascination with the robot toy, and his attitude was more open to changes than the other characters. Regarding the robot, that’s a scene where the ambiguity has led to contradictory interpretations from the viewers. The robot accidentally switched his direction and repeatedly crashed into a wall, without the people noticing it. After the light of the room was switched off, the only visible aspect was the robot’s shining eyes. Antonioni appreciated that this scene was meant to be open to interpretation, though he did not want the viewers to feel that the scene had a negative outlook suggesting the technological direction was leading humanity to a dead end. Rather, he pointed out that because in the dark the shining eyes of the robot was the only source of illumination, it could be the thing that could assist humanity to a better outcome. Because Valerio could easily accept this new toy, he would be more equipped to face the many changes that he would eventually encounter in his adulthood.

12. With ‘Red Desert’, Antonioni asked his audience to have a change in perspective – should things be always perceived in the same way? Anything, no matter natural and man-made, can have the potential to show a beauty of its own. That only depends on how you look at it.

(2/2)


Film Analysis

A Few Words on Oscar

The Academy Awards ceremony has taken place on 5^th March, 2018. While there were not many surprises for the winners, it is a great idea here to review a few of these wonderful films from 2017.

 

‘The Shape of Water’ has won the Best Picture Oscar, and Guillermo del Toro has won his first Oscar for his stunning directorial effort. Del Toro has been acclaimed as a visual and imaginative director over the years, and while ‘The Shape of Water’ has similarities with another of his masterpiece, ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’, these films are about the potential of imagination and fantasy within a harsh reality. The two protagonists of ‘The Shape of Water’ were both underdogs – who were the victims in a paranoid and prejudiced world. There should be no surprise that the story took place in a setting of the Cold War because that was exactly the time when people did not put much consideration on the well-being and dignity of individuals – even if it was a blue, fish-like creature – and subject to bouts of electric shocks and vivisections. Yet, del Toro is willing to offer us hope – the setting was exactly where fantasy and love could become possible, when the mute protagonist and the creature could fathom a compassion beyond human. The scenario is very similar to ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’, when the little girl has to imagine a fantasy world with the creature with horns to ‘detox’ her really stressful situations. The evil clutches may prevail sometimes in the real world through the brute force, yet those with golden hearts deserve more than just the world. Just like the 2 protagonists in the film, they can reach a realm where they can be happy together, and this is what a visionary filmmaker like del Toro can offer. After all, the analogy of water (which somewhat recalls Bruce Lee’s philosophical statement – ‘Be water, my friend) is related to humanity. Water is free-flowing, can come in all sort of forms and shapes. It only depends on the context, and gives meaning to itself. And, what you can make meanings out of your existence depends on you. 

Gary Oldman and Frances McDormand won the Best Actor and Best Actress respectively for their brilliant performances in ‘Darkest Hour’ and ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’. All the nominees in the Best Actor category are wonderful, and it really is a bit of a Mexican Standoff there. Gary Oldman has steadily proved to us that he is a spectacular actor who deserves to be loved throughout the years. One can never forget his killer performance in ‘Leon: The Professional’, when he played the Beethoven loving bad cop. Just like when he was portraying Winston Churchill, he put all his feelings and efforts into the character, and with the stunning makeup effects he literally became Churchill. I suppose many of the film lovers would feel great about Oldman finally winning the Oscar. Frances McDormand, who has already won the Best Actress Oscar years ago in ‘Fargo’, completely nailed it as the obsessive, foul-mouthed, and determined mother in ‘Three Billboards’. Her intense look only showed her determination of getting things right, and she would drop F-bombs and go NBK (interesting that Woody Harrelson was also in the film – a bit sad he did not get the Oscar, but then Sam Rockwell is also great) on the injustice that befell around her. The three billboards represented her modus operandi when facing with the disjointed time, direct and to the point. McDormand is channeling Klaus Kinski here – her character is obsessive about her aim, and she can easily go a bit too far – at a certain point throwing Molotov cocktails (and F-bombs and racial slurs) to the police station. I do not feel the director was asking the audience to judge his characters. There is no point to ask whether McDormand’s character is good or evil, so are Harrelson’s and Rockwell’s, because the flaws are what make them so human and realistic. The dark sides portrayed in the film – the prejudice, obsession, anger – are something present in our world, and we have to be courageous and confront them often. Ms. McDormand’s talent should be lauded because, as a leading lady often in Coen Brothers’ films, ‘Blood Simple’, ‘Fargo’ etc., she always delivered the first rate performance of surviving and fighting in an absurd, bigoted, and to be plain, effed-up universe. The intensity of her performance testified the fighting back of the individual, something that humanity should really cherish and celebrate.

‘Dunkirk’ won 3 technical awards, and Christopher Nolan was nominated for both director and picture. The film is special because Nolan has painstakingly turned away the narrative structure common in many American movies. The idea of the film is very simple, very different from his past work like Memento or Inception. The plot is sort of similar to The Wages of Fear, where basically the soldiers were fighting for their lives through round after round of obstacles, asking themselves when they will hit the wall. What Nolan has achieved is to present the story through a very visual and aural way, and the scenarios here would give the audience snapshots and experience of war. Nolan did not try to give us a coherent story of the evacuation, and this should not be seen as a shortcoming of the film, as some critics may have assumed. He deliberately downplayed the importance of the use of dialogue to explain the story and feelings of the characters, so in a Kubrickian sense - the film is possibly the closest in terms of his influence from Kubrick - Nolan ‘banalized’ the dialogues and made the characters opaque. Because, like Mildred's case in ‘Three Billboards’, there was no room for polite society, everyone was just reacting to survive and passing the round. I really love the fact that since the first meeting of the 2 main characters on the beach, they have not really said anything to each other, but no one would deny that they were friends. I believe this is a testament to Nolan's caliber, where you do not need any sentimental dialogues to convince the audience they are comrades - all you need is a creative vision.

How did Nolan achieve this visual experience? It is instructive that he has taken inspiration from silent films, an era that dialogues were only presented as title cards, and the filmmaker had to exert the power 100% by the cinematic images. That is the reason why some of the most memorable cinematic images come from the silent era, because the filmmaker had to fully rely on the visual aspects to make the point. Nolan used purely visual means to portray the stress and excitement when one was locked in battle, and the spectacular sound effects lead to a cinematic poiesis of action. The effect is further enhanced because Nolan played in parallel 3 sets of action of various durations, and the relativity of the time difference clearly heightened and alienated the effect of viewing the film. The stylized score evoked stress for the audience, and completely matched the theme of escalation as shown in the film. When watching the film, I could only think of the famous quote from Churchill, ‘If you're going through hell, keep going!’

Finally, how can we miss 'Blade Runner 2049', a genuinely fantastic film from 2017? Though I was a bit disappointed the film was not recognized by any major category nominations of Oscar - I would be surprised if the film was not a top 10 film of 2017 - it did finally get the respect from the great reviews from critics this time, and got 5 nominations in Oscar, eventually winning 2 well deserved ones - Visual Effects and Cinematography. Though I will always see BR as a Ridley Scott masterpiece, Denis Villeneuve has given new life to the story, and he has made significant contributions in terms of the interpretations of BR.

Roger Deakins, a first-rate director of photography who has worked with the Coen Brothers, Scorsese and Villeneuve, finally won his first Oscar for BR2049. Deakins is the rare sort of  cinematographer who has a style as distinct as a  filmmaker, some other examples are Vittorio Storaro, Gordon Willis and Emmanuel Lubezki. Say, in Storaro’s case, no matter it is a Bertulocci, Coppola, or Beatty film, Storaro always provides his signature fluid camera movement, and complements with the approach of the director in question. When we look at Deakins’s style, one can usually identify with a gritty atmosphere, and that is why he has such fruitful collaborations with the Coen Brothers and also Villeneuve, as it will be very different if Deakins’s signature style is absent in films like ‘Prisoners’ and ‘Sicario’. Deakins’s style perfectly fits the future noir of Blade Runner, and affords a sense of edginess to the not-that-black-and-white film. Speaking of style, we should also acknowledge and appreciate the original effort of Jordan Cronenweth, the cinematographer for the original Blade Runner film in 1982. It was him who gave us the atmospheric feel of the original masterpiece, and literally influenced every sci-fi or cyberpunk films since then. Scott has always maintained that Blade Runner was intended to contain elements of Film Noir, and it should be of no surprise that Cronenweth’s approach to cinematography was also inspired by the aesthetics of Film Noir. The low key, expressionistic feel that penetrate both Blade Runner films is exactly what make them visually stunning and that achievement deserves the recognition from Oscar.

Really look forward to more wonderful films in 2018!