Identification of a Woman is hardly one of Antonioni’s most galvanized
or necessary works – it often seems mired in bewilderment (or in figurative - and
in a couple of its most striking scenes literal - fog). It seems all too
obvious that the protagonist, Niccolo, would be a director uncertain about his next
project – at one point saying he’s no further along than knowing it will be
about a woman, and later on seeming bogged down merely in searching for striking faces. But uncertainty
isn’t the same as resignation, let alone surrender, and the film has a constant
sense of reaching for something potentially transformative, and of welcoming
the accompanying frustrations. In the first section, Niccolo’s relationship
with the aristocratic Mavi exposes him to threats from unknown presumed
competitors, to a social group he’s uncomfortable with, and ultimately to her
unexplained disappearance; the sex scenes between them often carry a sense of
wanting to conquer the surrounding space, or to break through it. In the second
section, he meets an actress, Ida, who embodies quieter and more intimate
mysteries. Antonioni shows us little of the development of either relationship,
and the film has a constant sense of roads not taken or threats narrowly
avoided – long looks exchanged with other women, warnings of pending violence –
or of understandings from which Niccolo is excluded: he certainly seems here
like the most passive of filmmakers. In the end, the film suggests his artistic
(and perhaps personal) redemption must lie in transcending earthly mysteries,
to move into science fiction, where the investigations are celestial;
describing the project in his closing voice-over, his imagination for the first
time seems free and his wonderment unjaded. The film certainly feels strained
at times, and never approaches the glories of L’Avventura or The Passenger;
its strange poignancy lies in the sense that Antonioni no longer thought
himself capable (or worthy?) of aiming for them.
No comments:
Post a Comment