Red Desert, Red Lights

This is a still from the Michelangelo Antonioni film Il Deserto Rosso (Red Desert in English)--a 1964 art classic. Last night I wanted to see this playing at the Castro Theater in San Francisco right after work, so I was careening down the highway not watching the speedometer when suddenly I spotted a California Highway patrol car in my rearview mirror. Imagine my astonishment when his red lights went off, and I realized they were for me. I started to pull off to the side of the freeway, but he spoke over his loudspeaker for me to take the next exit ramp. He gave me a ticket for going 75 mph in a 65 mph zone (even though he acknowledged that everybody speeds on this particular stretch of the road). This was my first ticket in many years. But I still made it to the movie on time--and if the storyline of the film was a little bit "odd" (a married woman having a somehow unconvincing nervous breakdown after a car crash and ending up having a strange affair with her husband's business acquaintance), it was visually spectacular with great use of out of focus images (artist/photographer Uta Barth would love it). Monica Vitti looks quite chic in her long green coat and pout, and Richard Harris arches his brows and speaks dubbed Italian--what more could you ask for? What amazed me most was how well it held up for a film shot in the early 60's. As I was leaving the theater I overheard some guy telling his wife, "So basically it was about pollution." Close enough pal, maybe even dead on--who knows what Antonioni was thinking?

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