Identification of a Woman

Viewed April 17, 2021. Movie 3900. The fog sequence alone makes this a great film; relationships between people are diffuse, easily lost in the murk of modern life.

The first half was seeming pretty good, but it just spent the whole second half fizzling out. It didn't go any of the places I hoped it would with the first half material and didn't go anywhere new either. The camerawork is gorgeous, of course, but the film is just above "not bad".

This feels a little bit like "Antonioni For Dummies". Although there are some mysteries and ambiguities, it's not as enigmatic as his more highly-regarded works. Which isn't to say it's a bad movie. It drags quite a bit, but there are some intriguing parts. The cinematography is excellent, and I enjoyed the soundtrack, dated as it is. Overall, the film is engaging, but only intermittently so. The first half is more rewarding with all its paranoia... things fizzle out more in the second part.

Feels like a bit of a late life remake of "L'Avventura" for Antonioni where his POV is more hazy, ghostly, and detached. It's a structural mess with very little in the way of coherence or momentum but remains a visual wonder and has many fragments of wisdom.

Atmospheric but lacking energy and purpose (though that seems to be the point). Seems like there is an attempt at metafiction that isn't fully committed to. Up to the halfway mark, it has the setup for a horror (or at least a thriller) film.

Its muted, intangible sense of paranoia is communicated with a strange sense of timing. Some events occur deliberately off-screen, significant periods pass in a single cut, and it's unclear that it actually begins in-media-res until well in. Perhaps it drags during the second half, but it's not as if there's any particular waypoint to lose. Obscurity and elusiveness are its very heart and soul, it just might lack the level of cinematic ingenuity which sustains Antonioni's best films.

O mais perto que Antonioni chegou de Proust.

Antonioni in low key mode. The cinematography, while often beautiful, is less overtly flashy and attention drawing than it was in the past, and there is more emphasis on character development here to the point that it can seem almost generic. But Antonioni always has a few tricks up his sleeve, and I.O.A.W feels more organic and earthy and melancholy in tone than his great masterworks. It takes a while to get going, but it manages to weave a hypnotic spell on its own terms.

watched: 2014, 2019