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17 out of 19 people found the following comment useful :- An underrated and brilliant film worth watching., 9 October 1999 Author: Xanadu-2
A very beautiful film with that special Antonioni atmosphere. I can identify with the feeling of emptiness and the people who can´t really communicate with each other. Modern life and adulthood seems shallow and a bit soulless. You have to fill it with something and make it human again.The first time I saw it I was disapointed but it improved greatly with the second viewing and I want to see it again. There are new things to discover each time as with all of Antonionis´ films.
12 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :- Antonioni returns to Italy a more relaxed man., 25 June 2004 Author: Ben_Cheshire from Oz
*** This comment may contain spoilers ***
(sort of spoilers, i suppose)Identification of a Woman was Antonioni's first film in Italy since the beautiful Red Desert. And its a quieter, more mature film than his international films.I'm glad I saw Identification of a Woman because it contains one of Antonioni's most beautiful sequences: the scenes in the fog, with people disappearing and reappearing. And also because we have something here we don't always have: characters and what almost resembles a story.We have an Antonioni-esque film director looking for the ideal female face for his next film.I think the film's about how men misunderstand women. They're only spying on them (spying is a recurring motif in the film), looking on from the outside, as if they were merely faces: I think this is why the (approximate) story of the film centres on a man looking for the perfect face for his new movie (ie, not the perfect woman).Be prepared, though, to not hold up hopes that Antonioni will stick with this story - because its left for you to decide whether a face, or a woman, are identified. This is not a flaw in the film - it was Antonioni's trademark.But if you only had so many hours of your life to spare for Antonioni films, i don't recommend you use up two on this one.It definitely doesn't have the passion and enthusiasm of Zabriskie Point - aside from his great works (L'Avventura, La Notte, L'Eclisse, Red Desert, The Passenger), i'd recommend you see the visually exhilirating Zabriskie Point instead of this.Caution: fairly extreme nudity and sex, mostly not of an erotic nature, but fairly intense (not rape or anything like that... just fairly hungry, physical sex).
14 out of 19 people found the following comment useful :- Weak but interesting Antonioni film, 22 January 2002 Author: zetes from Saint Paul, MN
This is probably obvious, but if you don't like Antonioni, stay away from Identification of a Woman. If you've never seen another, check out one of these films first: L'Avventura, La Notte, L'Eclisse, Red Desert, Blowup, The Passenger, or Zabriskie Point. If you are a fan of Antonioni, like myself, please do check out this film. It is definitely one of Antonioni's weaker films, but it is still undeniably in his style and containing his regular themes. This one is about a film director who can be said to fall in love with a woman (who, incidentally, looks a lot like a very young and extraordinarily thin version of Monica Vitti), but he can't express that love. The woman is upset at this and disappears. In some ways, this is like a weaker version of L'Avventura. The man tries to get on with his life, begins dating again, but eventually realizes that his mind revolves around the girl who abandoned him. This film is disappointing, especially if you're in love with Antonioni the director. The direction is generally flat. Only a few scenes show his supreme visual style. 6/10.
9 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :- Superbly Atmospheric minor masterpiece, 5 June 2001 Author: Mark Hudson from London, England
Possibly the most atmospheric film I ever seen, it made a huge impact when I first saw it, and that opinion has never changed. If there is one film that conveys the mystery of life this is it. It is also a highly evocative picture of Italy from the perspective of the upper middle classes in the late Seventies. Crying out for a DVD release as the photography was excellent too on the original film showings.
5 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :- A fine film, 13 November 2005 Author: SandyBates from United Kingdom
I can understand why this film has received 10/10 - it's excellent.Perhaps the most surprising element is the ending - it's in such strong contrast to the rest of the film, that it is akin to a psychological 'splitting off' by the main character, Niccolo. As he gazes into his own imaginary world, he experiences, in imagined dialogue with his nephew, a scenario from a film he may direct - a spaceship flies towards the sun, which appears to explode or expand, and fantasises about receiving the answers 'to so many things'.It links in with the 'sun expanding' headline glimpsed from a newspaper earlier in the film, and works well for this ground being set for it.I cannot decided whether this ending is bleak or hopeful - whether he escapes into a world of fantasy because of his inability to face up to the pain involved in looking at his impotence in resolving the relationship issues in his life; or whether it is a transcendental ending, in which he uses his situation to plunge into a creative world.It's this ambiguity (and lack of didactic intent from Antonioni) which gives the film its quality and power.
6 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :- IDENTIFICATION OF A WOMAN (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1982) **1/2, 15 August 2007 Author: MARIO GAUCI (marrod@melita.com) from Naxxar, Malta
Antonioni’s last film prior to his suffering a stroke is this very typical effort (co-written with Gerard Brach and Tonino Guerra), dealing with a number of key themes that run through his work – lack of communication, the mystery-as-journey-of-self-discovery, etc. That said, the film wasn’t picked up for U.S. release until 1996 and is subsequently perhaps the least-seen of Antonioni’s films from his post-AVVENTURA phase! Anyway, the mystery element links the film with the director’s earlier BLOW UP (1966) and THE PASSENGER (1975); still, it’s never as intriguing here as in those more celebrated titles (especially since, for once, it’s explained away at the end!)…but, as I said, the film eventually emerges to be more about the mid-life crisis of its central character (despite the title). Interestingly, he’s a film director – though “Euro-Cult” favorite Tomas Milian feels as incongruous to Antonioni’s cinema as Marcello Mastroianni’s presence had been in LA NOTTE (1961)! He has an obsessive relationship with a young woman (even enjoying some LAST TANGO IN Paris [1972]-type sex scenes!) who eventually leaves him and disappears (shades also of L’AVVENTURA [1960]); while searching for her, he meets a variety of other willing girls (among them Antonioni’s own future wife Enrica Fico). Marcel Bozzuffi appears in one brief, irrelevant scene as Milian’s brother.Overall, the film is tiresomely long and often mirrors the tedium experienced by the characters; the ending, however, is a beauty – suggesting that, even if he’s a failure at love, a film director is still left with his imagination. Carlo Di Palma’s cinematography is notable, too – particularly at the Venice location (where, coincidentally, I saw the Antonionis three years ago!) and during the tense fog-bound sequence; the film’s score, then, is a mix of electronic, ambient and pop – and all very much of its period. As was the case with THE PASSENGER, THE MYSTERY OF OBERWALD (which is now one of only two features by the director I’ve yet to catch up with!) and BEYOND THE CLOUDS (1995), Antonioni had a hand in the editing of the film; here, he receives sole credit for this and the result makes especially effective use of ellipses (the factors of time and space had always been a primary concern in his work – thus making the apparently mocking recourse to science-fiction at the end anything but coincidental!).
2 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :- Who says that a perfect woman needs to be identified ?, 28 July 2008 Author: Lalit Rao (cpowerccc@yahoo.com) from Paris, France
Let us ask ourselves two frank yet simple questions about a modern day phenomenon called Italian cinema.Are Italian films difficult to understand ? Are films by Antonioni difficult as they are Italian ? Whatever might be the answer,it is somewhat true that Identification of a woman is an absolutely hard to please work of cinema.This is because the film is not at all about ways to identify a perfect woman. It is more about the attempts made by a filmmaker to identify two women.There is a perfect woman as well as an imperfect woman.Since there is no concept of a perfect woman,what the viewers see is a search for an imperfect woman.As disappearance appears to be the leitmotif of Antonioni's works,he has decided to augment it by showing the boredom of upper middle class section of Italian society.Antonioni has done a good job by portraying a film maker's frustration.He shows us things that go in the mind of a filmmaker before the birth of a film.This film requires multiple viewing sessions in order to be understood well by its audience.Identification of a woman could easily be rated as a crowd puller at some obscure film festival whose audience consists of people eager to see some action oriented flick. 25 years ago a film like this one was appreciated worldwide as it won a prize at Cannes International Film Festival.These days,there is a possibility that no many people will care about this film as they have lost all patience for films whose comprehension is beyond the range of ordinary knowledge or understanding.
1 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :- A Nutshell Review: Identification of a Woman, 4 July 2008 Author: DICK STEEL from Singapore
As introduced by Lorenzo Codelli, Identification of a Woman was presented in the Cannes Film Festival in 1982 and received a special anniversary award. It's like a personal movie because the lead character Niccolo (Tomas Milian) is a film director, and tells of a personal crisis of the filmmaker. Niccolo was played by a leading Italian actor of the time, Tomas Milian, who was famous for his roles in Italian spaghetti westerns, and was an action star. This was essential the last feature film made by Michelangelo Antonioni before his stroke, before which he spent most of the 80s publishing short stories and exhibiting his abstract paintings.And personally, my bad track record with Antonioni's post L'Eclisse movies unfortunately continues. I'm pretty sure I'm missing something very obvious (or could be it so subtle it eludes me?) that I'm finding each of them quite difficult to sit through (save for perhaps The Passenger), and to try and see its underlying meaning. Perhaps I am just scratching the surface and in doing so, fail to appreciate what the movie's about and for.Or maybe Identification of a Woman is indeed the weaker of the lot, because of certain resemblance to plot design with his earlier masterpieces? For starters there seemed to be some repetitive themes revisited, but that I'm fine with because it made it easier to click with and connect. Just like how Niccolo and his squeeze Mavi (Daniela Silverio) spend considerable time at an emotionally empty high society party reminiscent of that in L'Notte, where they nurse issues from the heart, as well as for one to come to terms with the other's secret admirer.Surely the sex is good, and the movie wastes absolutely no time in getting beneath the sheets for some surprisingly erotic time of a horizontal tango complete with underarm forests, but naturally physical love doesn't compensate for emotional depth absent between the lovers, highlighting something inherent wrong in their relationship. Having anonymous threats made to Niccola also didn't help, as he experienced first hand how these threats got carried out to hurt those he loved. We spend a bit of time with their attempts to escape from a stalker, and even had a technically brilliant sequence involving a deep mist that I thought contemporary movies like Frank Darabont's The Mist, or the video game movie adaptation of Shallow Hill, had taken a huge leaf from.For Niccolo's inability to declare his love and address their conflicts, we get a dose of L'Avventura here. Mavi disappears, and we don't really get to see much of her thereafter. Niccolo tries to launch a search, and we get into the second half of the movie where we see his new relationship with a young actress Ida (Christine Boisson). But of course there are issues to grapple with here, and I thought was something I'd understand as well, and that's the continued holding out of the candle for someone else, together with the notion of love versus need, and serving as an emotional crutch. It's not fair of course, but there's more challenges ahead for Niccola in his relationship with Ida to accept, but by the time we get to it, I'd more or less didn't really care for Niccola anymore.Which probably contrasted to a statement which Lorenzo Codelli shared about what Antonioni said regarding this movie being about its characters. I thought his earlier movies had stronger and more interesting characters, or at least those who can hook my attention down and allowed me to care for them a bit, versus those in this movie. Then again, I suspect I may be on a different wavelength since I enjoyed most of Antonioni's earliest works in the 50s, as compared to the more contemporary ones shown this week so far.
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