David Locke (an unusually understated Jack Nicholson), a journalist making a reportage in Africa, is tired of his life and perhaps of himself; when a person he had just met dies, David pretends to be him and goes on with the dead man's mysterious life.
This could have been the plot of an airport novel, but, like in l'Avventura, in Antonioni the "giallo" side of the story is merely the premise.
Locke is frustrated by being unable to see beyond the surface of people and situations, and decides to start over again as Robertson; however, much like the blind man of the final anecdote, he ultimately finds no relief. His perspective is limited, his experience haunted by problems of both his old life (his wife pursuing him) and his new one (people hunting for him).
The moment in which he is finally able to transcend his narrow point of view is death. In an astounding piece of film-making, a long, elegant single take, the camera leaves an exhausted David lying in the bed of a sordid hotel in a town in the middle of nowhere, follows the key events taking place outside and symbolically slides through the window grates in the moment of the murder, finally freeing David from his own existence.
Also fascinating is the use Antonioni makes of colors. A sequence at the beginning shows a bright blue car stalling in the midst of the stark orange of the desert. For the rest of the movie blue/white on one hand and orange/red on the other are symbolically linked, respectively, to David's new life/desire to escape and to his past (and Robertson's) catching up with him.
-Blue/white: the rooms of the hotel in which the identities are switched, the dead man's shirt which David wears, the sea of Barcelona over which David appears to loom over in a memorable shot, the Girl's dresses and luggage, the car on which they travel.
-Orange/red: These tones are dominant at the beginning (the desert), almost disappear during the middle act of the picture, then reappear in the last part as David's fate comes in full circle, re-emerging in the landscape in which the car breaks down. When the murder takes place, a young kid wearing a bright red shirt enters the screen running, symbolically sealing David's fate.
9/10
This could have been the plot of an airport novel, but, like in l'Avventura, in Antonioni the "giallo" side of the story is merely the premise.
Locke is frustrated by being unable to see beyond the surface of people and situations, and decides to start over again as Robertson; however, much like the blind man of the final anecdote, he ultimately finds no relief. His perspective is limited, his experience haunted by problems of both his old life (his wife pursuing him) and his new one (people hunting for him).
The moment in which he is finally able to transcend his narrow point of view is death. In an astounding piece of film-making, a long, elegant single take, the camera leaves an exhausted David lying in the bed of a sordid hotel in a town in the middle of nowhere, follows the key events taking place outside and symbolically slides through the window grates in the moment of the murder, finally freeing David from his own existence.
Also fascinating is the use Antonioni makes of colors. A sequence at the beginning shows a bright blue car stalling in the midst of the stark orange of the desert. For the rest of the movie blue/white on one hand and orange/red on the other are symbolically linked, respectively, to David's new life/desire to escape and to his past (and Robertson's) catching up with him.
-Blue/white: the rooms of the hotel in which the identities are switched, the dead man's shirt which David wears, the sea of Barcelona over which David appears to loom over in a memorable shot, the Girl's dresses and luggage, the car on which they travel.
-Orange/red: These tones are dominant at the beginning (the desert), almost disappear during the middle act of the picture, then reappear in the last part as David's fate comes in full circle, re-emerging in the landscape in which the car breaks down. When the murder takes place, a young kid wearing a bright red shirt enters the screen running, symbolically sealing David's fate.
9/10