Prompted by the recent death of Monica Vitti (1931 – 2022), on a day my city shut down due to inclement weather, I re-watched Michelangelo Antonioni’s Red Desert. Outside, the streets iced into the night and through the blinds, I noticed that the sky glowed white. I then got to thinking that the notion of human seemed absurd, as who are we to battle nature? We hunker in our houses under heavy blankets in our defense against the outside. We are newcomers to this planet, after all. We arrive and then we depart, hoping that our presence has made some sort of impact.

Red Desert might be the most (anti-)nature film ever made. Set amid the grime of industrial plants, pollution, metal wire, and murky water, only the sky and wind remain intact. But that doesn’t stop humans from polluting it. ‘Why is the smoke yellow?’ the boy asks his mother. ‘Because it is poisonous,’ she replies. Monica Vitti plays Giuliana—a young mother who is undergoing trauma from a previous accident. Her husband, Ugo (Carlo Chonetti), works at the industrial plant she visits. It is a dirty and inhospitable wasteland, where grit and grime are the norm and where colored smoke fills the sky. She visits one day while the plant workers are on strike. Upon witnessing a man eating a sandwich, she offers to buy it even though he has already bit into it. Confused and fragile, something is amiss. […]