Let us ask ourselves two frank yet simple questions about a modern day phenomenon called Italian cinema.Are Italian films difficult to understand ? Are films by Antonioni difficult as they are Italian ? Whatever might be the answer,it is somewhat true that Identification of a woman is an absolutely hard to please work of cinema.This is because the film is not at all about ways to identify a perfect woman. It is more about the attempts made by a filmmaker to identify two women.There is a perfect woman as well as an imperfect woman.Since there is no concept of a perfect woman,what the viewers see is a search for an imperfect woman.As disappearance appears to be the leitmotif of Antonioni's works,he has decided to augment it by showing the boredom of upper middle class section of Italian society.Antonioni has done a good job by portraying a film maker's frustration.He shows us things that go in the mind of a filmmaker before the birth of a film.This film requires multiple viewing sessions in order to be understood well by its audience.Identification of a woman could easily be rated as a crowd puller at some obscure film festival whose audience consists of people eager to see some action oriented flick. 25 years ago a film like this one was appreciated worldwide as it won a prize at Cannes International Film Festival.These days,there is a possibility that no many people will care about this film as they have lost all patience for films whose comprehension is beyond the range of ordinary knowledge or understanding.
Review of Identification of a Woman
Identification of a Woman
(1982)
Who says that a perfect woman needs to be identified ?
28 July 2008