Michelangelo Antonioni's 1982 film, The
Identification of a Woman is about an Italian film director's romantic relationship with two
women, both of whom he wishes to use as muses to inspire a study of a female
form in his next film. Women should be like nature, he tells a friend, describing his
ideal relationship with a woman filled with mutual silence and her innate physical responsiveness that mirrors the purely physical and silent response of
nature. Indeed, both of the women who Niccolo (
Tomas Milan) dates, become intertwined with
nature in his eyes, thus losing their independent personality and character.
The first one of them, Mavi (
Daniela Silverio), he meets through his sister, who works as a
gynecologist. The sister's
secretary has finished her workday so Niccolo's sister tells him to answer the
phone in her office. Niccolo subverts Mavi's attempt to schedule a
appointment by turning into a
flirtation session instead. He asks her to describe her
physical appearance, because as a film
director he has a need to picture the people he is talking to. Mavi is receptive to Niccolo's
interest (maybe the fact that he is a famous director also draws her in) and before we know it they are at his house, having a short
conversation followed by
sex.
It is important to
contrast the initial conversation of the two with their first
lovemaking session, only to highlight that Niccolo comes to know Mavi via her body's physical responses more than through her words.
The scene when they first meet face to face has a very brief
conversation; the rest of the scene is purely sexual. We see Niccolo sitting on her in a
slanted position
kneading her
breasts. After that she pulls him downwards toward herself so that his body is stretched out horizontally directly above hers. She wraps her
legs around his. The camera focuses on the motion of their bodies for a few minutes in that position, until it cuts to the back of the woman sensuously and slowly pulling up her
panties.
Ironically, Niccolo is a film director and we know that his eye is attuned to the perfect
camera angle. His second lover, Ida, even acknowledges his filmmaker's
gaze by asking him whether he is trying to
frame her head in a
shot as he looks at her. Thus, it is not a stretch of the imagination to assume that the
sensuous scene that focuses on her body as she dresses herself indeed represents the
consciousness of Nicolo and his director's gaze that captures her form in its stark
beauty.
So if Niccolo is glorifying his lover's physical beauty (the part of her that is nature), how does he treat the part of her that has a personality, the aspect that is revealed by conversation? Before having sex, the two have an intellectual conversation that is absurd. Mavi asks him "Would there be a
God if there were no humans." He answers fatuously: "Even in the presence of humans his existence is doubtful." Mavi phrases the question ironically and her face has a sardonic indifferent expression as it usually does.
Apparently outside of her sexually alluring person, Mavi is a pretentious pseudo intellectual who poses questions that have no relevance. The very idea of God is a human concern, and by asking about
God in a context without humans, Mavi clearly reveals that God is an intellectual curiousity whom she considers outside of the context of human affairs.
Mavi confirms herself to be a pretentious pseudo-intellectual
twit in Niccolo's eyes after she introduces Niccolo to her friends at a high society
soirée, where she and her friends while away the time in a brightly lit European
salon with old-fashioned chairs, engaging in stilted conversations about contrabasses and commenting on the taste of strawberries.
We later learn that Mavi also conceives of her
relationship with Niccolo as purely sexual; a young girl who shares with Niccolo that she was Mavi's lover talks about how she prefers being
masturbated by other women rather than having sex with men. According to her, men apparently only use sex as an occasion to express their
virility through sex and prove their own strength instead of trying to please their partner. While these words do not come out of the mouth of Mavi herself, they can be taken to express her thoughts. In a scene where she broke up with Niccolo, Mavi accused him of leading a purely
sexual relationship with her. She tells him that he didn't allow their thoughts and opinions interact with each other, by keeping his
ideas, friends, and
thoughts away from her.
This break up scene was accentuated by an
ominous atmosphere: the two are speeding away from a
pursuing car in a
fog; the dreary
grayness of the
fog, the inability to see their surroundings, plus her partner's silence scared Mavi so much it drove her to
scream.
The atmosphere is not at all
incidental. The total darkness of the landscape, the whirling sensations created by speed, as well as the uncertainty of not knowing their location all represent the
feelings of both about their relationship.
They certainly represent Mavi's perspective: this man is a
mystery to her so she is in the dark about who she shares physical
intimacy with. The
darkness is compounded by a feeling of
whirlwind speed; the
relationship progresses, but it is
frightening and
uncertain because she doesn't what she might discover in the person that she is so intimate with.
This may be a simplistic
interpretation and one you as a viewer would not agree with when watching the film. The larger point is though that Antonini's landscapes certainly describe the
emotions of her characters. However attempting to make the
metaphorical connection between the state of mind of the
characters and the camera's frequent focus on
landscapes may not create a definitive link, because the two disparate pieces will not fit each other so securely.
However, as a viewer, I am interested in making sense of the film. That's why I won't hesitate to
speculate about the
meaning of some peculiar
plot elements. For example, in the beginning of the film Niccolo gets a phone call from a guy who wants to meet him in a
café to discuss something important. This chubby faced mustached man tells Nicolo to stay away from
Mavi.
Nicolo suspects him to be Mavi's secret
lover, but she denies ever knowing him. Niccolo is nevertheless constantly bothered by his presence: the sinister man threatens his sister and frequently follows Nicoloin order to force him to give up dating Mavi. In fact, it is Niccolo's suspicion that he is being pursued by this man that leads him to drive with Mavi into a
fog and brings us to the scene where she breaks up with him.
The viewer never learns the identity of this pursuer; even in the scence where Niccolo accidentaly runs into him, he manages to run off without revealing his
name or
address. I suspect that the spy's actual identity matters less than his
metaphorical significance. The character becomes an occasion to express Niccolo's innate
intution that his relationship with Mavi is doomed to end. When Nicollo brings up his
suspicion of being chased by another car to a
policeman, the latter tells him that Niccolo's fear of being chased doesn't correspond to an actual threat.
In retelling this story,
Niccolo concedes that this fear is really something within him, a
paranoia of a pursuer that may not actually exist. In fact, this admission rings true if we consider an incident in the first scene of the film. That scene is permeated by an atmosphere of
panic, with the annoying sound of the phone ringing and a fire alarm setting off a thought in
Niccolo's head that that causes him to feel very disturbed and alarmed about having recently broken up with his wife. Later, a hotel worker tells Niccolo that the
fire alarm was supposed to have gone off because of robbers, but in fact he is not sure that there were any robbers in the hotel. Again, the panic experienced by Niccolo in this scene doesn't serve to bring up any real event; it seems only to illuminate his own feelings of panic with regard to a woman.
Of course, it is only logical to conclude that Niccolo's feeling of
panic with regard to a pursuer in the presence of Mavi is actually really brought about by Niccolo's innate and sad knowledge that his
relationship with Mavi is
doomed to end. This inevitable end is fated from the beginning because Niccolo's goal of making sure that Mavi is a woman of pure form,
inspiration, and nature will most likely not be fulfilled. Mavi, like other women, will cease to be a
mysterious force of nature and will want to be a
companion with a
personality. Thus, she is destined to become exactly the kind of real woman that Niccolo doesn't want and cease being the mysterious
muse that he felli n love with.
Incidentally, Niccolo runs into the same issue with his next
girlfriend,
Ida (
Christine Boisson.) His best time spent with her is when he takes her out to
sea on a
boat. Niccolo tells Ida that he can best love her in the
solitude inspired by a state of being surrounded by him, her, and
waves with everything else excluded. In fact, during her first date with her, when they are walking through the streets near a
theater, he tells Ida that he doesn't want to watch a play but would rather just eat and talk.
The end of their relationship comes after Ida finds out that she is pregnant; Niccolo apparently doesn't think the mother can be muse, a mysterious presence, an erotic
gravitation force. That thought bores to the thematic depth of the film: can the mystical and magical
erotic attraction of two beings, two bodies transform into a relationship of two ordinary everyday people without itself becoming banal and ordinary and causing the two partners to lose their
fascination for each other?
In a rather funny scene of the film, Mavi walks by a department store window where a living girl is standing next to a
display model of an almost naked, bikini-clad male and caressing him. Mavi tells Niccolo that a friend of her stopped by there and was so impressed by this model that she had to take a picture with him.
This little scene offers a bit of
ironic commentary on
love:
attraction certainly starts with the body, and the presence of the
body, female or male, is what creates the
romantic,
passionate link between two people. The model in the
store window is like the alluring
silent partner that Niccolo wants to find for his
inspiration.
Note: This film was nominated for two awards at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival: the 35th Anniversary Prize and the Golden Palm. It was the first award but not the second.
Further Reading: Please consult
liontamer's
The Alienation Trilogy node for an excellent overview of
Michelangelo Antonioni's work.