Antonioni’s first venture into colour paints a picture of life in a bleak industrial society. A disturbed young woman, Giuliana, lives in a rundown industrial area with her husband, a local factory manager. Suffering from anxiety, Giuliana struggles to make sense of a life in which her role is unclear and she embarks on an affair with a visiting engineer, who takes advantage of her unstable state. Filmed in a grim, polluted environment that offers its human inhabitants little comfort, the movie is an atmospheric and visually innovative exploration of alienation and dislocation.

Red Desert won the Golden Lion at the 25th Venice Film Festival in 1964.

“This flawed masterpiece is a political film, anger seething beneath the seductively beautiful surface, and a contrast to the surrounding devastation is provided by a simple fable told to a small boy by his mother.” Philip French, The Observer.