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Red Desert (1964). Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni. I've seen this several times over the years, but never had the opportunity to watch it so carefully as now in this new Criterion release. Monica Vitti (who else?) is Giuliana, the mentally unstable wife of an Italian industrialist; with an emotionally challenging son, a caring but unperceptive husband, superficial friends, and a new lover in her life (Richard Harris), she's barely keeping it together. The strange industrial environment she inhabits is the perfect backdrop to communicate her alienation. Antonioni's cinematography, color palate, eerie sound effects, and location shooting are what's really on display here. He creates a film which often seems more interested in what the smokestacks are doing than the people standing next to them. Yet, that's part of the theme, I think, and one which is present in the other great films of the quartet--especially L'eclisse. He keeps the people and their environment in an uneasy balance, and often the background threatens to eclipse the characters. *****

Les Carabiniers (1963). Directed by Jean Luc Godard. Two hapless peasants go off to war to win the riches of the world. They come home to the women-folk after months of carnage with their earnings: a box full of postcards depicting the pyramids, the Statue of Liberty, and every other "wonder of the world". Godard's anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, anti-movie movie is probably one of his lesser ones. Or perhaps it's just a bit dated. It's a thin fable, in my opinion, and the sort of thing that William Klein, among others, would do much better later in the decade. **1/2

Walkabout (1971). Directed by Nicolas Roeg. One of Roeg's best films (for me, just a click under Don't Look Now), it concerns a teenage girl (Jenny Agutter) and her little brother who end up lost in the Australian outback after their deranged father attempts to murder them. They struggle for survival until, by chance, they meet a young Aborigine (David Gulpilil) on his "walkabout"--a rite of passage not unlike a Native American "vision quest". They befriend each other and the boy assists them in finding food and water and, eventually, civilization again (although what that words means in this conext is difficult to know). This being a Roeg film, much more happens, of course, and all of it is brought to us in a visual feast. However, the location shooting in the outback is front and center here: its vibrancy, its mystery, its awesomeness, and its danger are all communicated beautifully. Roeg's semi-linear style, his use of jarring juxtapositions and powerful objective correlatives serve the story well. A great film. *****

~CD