Indentification Of A Woman review

Reviews

Jun 30th 2008 By Total Film

Briskly dumped from US cinemas in ’82 after terrible reviews, the director’s final full feature is A Michelangelo Antonioni Film right down to its DNA. Meaning? It’s compelling, mysterious, meandering and spiked with self-indulgence. A middle-aged film director (Tomas Milian) searching for an actress to play the ideal woman begins affairs with two enigmatic (and frequently naked) females, only to drift away from what he’s looking for. Like L’Avventura and The Passenger, this film pushes us into a fog of alienation and blurred identity – effortlessly realised by Blow-Up DoP Carlo Di Palma’s cool, beautiful cinematography. At the end of the film Antonioni’s hero finally decides to lose himself in a trippy sci-fi / fantasy as a spaceship jets towards the sun. As a cosmic metaphor, it’s up for grabs. As a sign-off by one of cinema’s arthouse giants, it’s absolutely worth exploring.