Identification of a Woman

Introduction

When Michelangelo Antonioni died this year, shortly after Ingmar Bergman, the film world mourned the passing of two giants. Antonioni assembled a formidable oeuvre during his time, including Identification of a Woman. His passing has led to an interest in his work, prompting the release of most of his films on DVD as part of the 'Tribute to Antonioni Series'.

In Antonioni's semi-autobiographical story, Niccolo (Tomas Milian), a divorced, middle-aged film director seems stuck in a rut, unable to find a woman to be the leading lady for his next film, nor what to make the film about. Whilst hanging around at his sister's office, he answers the phone and Mavi (Daniela Silverio) mistakes him for the gynaecologist. He explains that his sister is the doctor but the two flirt on the phone until she is available to talk to Mavi. His sister is fully booked but takes down her details in order to call her when she has an opening. Niccolo uses this information to contact Mavi and they begin a relationship. Shortly, he also begins a relationship with Ida (Christine Boisson), causing him to break up with both women, with whom he has become obsessed.

Video

Fair enough quality, with decent definition but there's a disappointing amount of detritus and wobble evident.

Audio

The Dolby Digital Italian Mono soundtrack is very muddy and it's amateur hour for the subtitles. Whoever did them ignored some lines, mistranslated others and had a poor grasp of grammar. It's hard to follow a film when lines like: ' Once poor Italians emigrated. Now they do.' and ' Has not seeing become a habit.' appear. Irritatingly, there are also spurious capitalisation and missing spaces - dÉcor, for example.

Extra Features

None, which is really disappointing as there are probably many critics, historians and family members with things to say about the film and/or Antonioni.

Conclusion

Michelangelo Antonioni was a great director in the 1950s and '60s, but by 1982 his career was well and truly on the wane. Identification of a Woman apparently never received a proper theatrical release and has only been available on VHS in the US. Watching this, it's easy to see why as it's thoroughly uninvolving, dull and revolves around a character you don't care about.

This mass release of Antonioni's films on DVD is a double-edged sword as, on one hand, fans have access to his work but, on the other, this apparent rush to release has left no time for remastering or adding supplementary material. Antonioni fans will be pleased to see it on DVD at last, but nobody else will.