is this a desperate chilly attempt at unravelling the eternal woman, postcoital nostalgia amidts the mists of avalon, female/male ego blast, M.A.'s attempt at women's lib, it doesn't matter, it's still fascinating, and I think of all times and audiences.
shareY'know, this is quickly becoming my favorite Antonioni, after Red Desert. And that's saying a lot, as I LOVE all his work, aside from Zabriskie Point..
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pre·ten·tious: characterized by assumption of dignity or importance.
I found the thing shapeless, frustratingly undefined in any sense or form - and, unlike most of his previous works, and save for a few scenes, this confusion & ambivalence is mostly dull instead of aesthetically compelling. Whereas the voids he used create in L´Avventura or The Passenger, were mystifying, simmering with an existential sense of displacement and loss, here it´s all just kind of ponderous. Antonioni treading water? That´s sort of the impression I got, anyway - a director repeating himself without offering any new angles (besides presenting such an amount of sex and nudity in such an unpleasently insistent, obnoxiously on-the-nose manner that the whole thing borders on smut at times and leaves an unpleasent aftertaste along with the general numb emptiness) or having much in the way of apparent inspiration. I think it actually replaces Zabriskie Point as his weakest film out of the 9 I´ve seen.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan