Identification of a Woman (1982) Identificazione di una donna (original title)

Director:

Michelangelo Antonioni

Writers:

Michelangelo Antonioni (story)
Michelangelo Antonioni (screenplay) ...
(more)

Release Date:

15 November 1996 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Plot:

The movie director Niccolo has just been left by his wife. This gives him the idea of making a movie about women's relationships...

Plot Keywords:

Director | Materialism | Female Frontal Nudity | Social Class | Explicit Sex

Awards:

1 win & 4 nominations

Cast

Tomas Milian	...	Niccolò
Daniela Silverio	...	Mavi
Christine Boisson	...	Ida
Lara Wendel	...	Girl in swimming pool
Veronica Lazar	...	Carla
Enrica Antonioni	...	Nadia (as Enrica Fico)
Sandra Monteleoni	...	Mavi's sister
Marcel Bozzuffi	...	Mario
Gianpaolo Saccarola	...	The gorilla
Arianna De Rosa	...	Mavi's friend
Dado Ruspoli	...	Mavi's father (as Alessandro Ruspoli)
Carlos Alberto Valles	...	Close-up man (as Carlos Valles)
Sergio Tardioli	...	Butcher
Itaco Nardulli	...	Lucio
Paola Dominguín	...	Girl in window
Pier Francesco Aiello	...	Young man at party (as Pierfrancesco Aiello)
Giada Gerini	...	Landlady
Luisa Della Noce	...	Mavi's mother
Stefania D'Amario	...	Landlady's friend (as Maria Stefania D'Amario)

Directed by
Michelangelo Antonioni

Writing credits
Michelangelo Antonioni		(story)
Michelangelo Antonioni		(screenplay) &
Gérard Brach		(screenplay)
Tonino Guerra		(scenario collaborator)

Produced by
Antonio Macri	....	producer (as Antonio Macrì)
Giorgio Nocella	....	producer
Renzo Rossellini	....	associate producer
Alessandro von Norman	....	executive producer (as Alessandro von Normann)

Original Music by
John Foxx

Cinematography by
Carlo Di Palma

Film Editing by
Michelangelo Antonioni

Production Design by
Andrea Crisanti

Costume Design by
Paola Comencini

Production Management
Franco Ballati	....	production manager
Lynn Kamern	....	unit manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Gianni Arduini	....	assistant director (as Giovanni Arduini)

Art Department
Antonio Tarolla	....	assistant art director
Massimo Tavazzi	....	set dresser

Sound Department
Michael Billingsley	....	sound editor
Mario Bramonti	....	sound engineer
Fernando Caso	....	sound effects editor
Alvaro Gramigna	....	sound effects

Camera and Electrical Department
Umberto Dessena	....	grip
Massimo Di Venanzo	....	camera operator
Michele Picciaredda	....	camera operator

Editorial Department
Fiorenza Muller	....	assistant editor
Giovanna Ritter	....	second assistant editor

Music Department
Dante Majorana	....	composer: additional music
Dante Majorana	....	music supervisor

Other crew
Violetta Coata	....	production secretary
Lorenzo Errico	....	production secretary
Renata Franceschi	....	script supervisor
Enzo Lucarini	....	administrator (as Vincenzo Lucarini)

Production Companies

• Iterfilm (as Iter Film S.p.A.)
• Rai Due (as Radiotelevisione Italiana Rete 2)
• Gaumont (co-production)

Distributors

• SACIS (1981) (Italy) (theatrical)
• Gaumont (1982) (France) (theatrical)
• Criterion Collection, The (2011) (USA) (DVD)
• Facets Multimedia Distribution (2000) (USA) (VHS)
• Homescreen (2009) (Netherlands) (DVD)
• Mr Bongo Films (2008) (UK) (DVD)

Other Companies

• Annamode  costumes (as Anna Mode)
• Cine Audio Effects  sound effects and foley design
• Rocchetti e Carboni  wigs
• Virgin Music Publishing  music publishing

Also Known As:

"Identificazione di una donna" - Italy (original title)

Runtime:

128 min

Country:

Italy | France

Language:

Italian | English | French

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

Sweden:11 | UK:18 | Italy:VM14 | Argentina:16 | Singapore:R21 | Australia:R | Portugal:M/16 | USA:Not Rated

Filming Locations:

Rome, Lazio, Italy

Company:

Iterfilm

Trivia:

Adverse word-of-mouth following 'New York Times' critic Vincent Canby's negative review of the film at the 1982 New York Film Festival led to the film being dropped by its US distributor. The film was eventually given a theatrical release in US in 1996.

Quotes:

Niccolo:Who said, "Family life is an invasion of one's privacy"?

Soundtrack:

Identikit

A Nutshell Review: Identification of a Woman

As introduced by Lorenzo Codelli, Identification of a Woman was presented in the Cannes Film Festival in 1982 and received a special anniversary award. It's like a personal movie because the lead character Niccolo (Tomas Milian) is a film director, and tells of a personal crisis of the filmmaker. Niccolo was played by a leading Italian actor of the time, Tomas Milian, who was famous for his roles in Italian spaghetti westerns, and was an action star. This was essential the last feature film made by Michelangelo Antonioni before his stroke, before which he spent most of the 80s publishing short stories and exhibiting his abstract paintings.

And personally, my bad track record with Antonioni's post L'Eclisse movies unfortunately continues. I'm pretty sure I'm missing something very obvious (or could be it so subtle it eludes me?) that I'm finding each of them quite difficult to sit through (save for perhaps The Passenger), and to try and see its underlying meaning. Perhaps I am just scratching the surface and in doing so, fail to appreciate what the movie's about and for.

Or maybe Identification of a Woman is indeed the weaker of the lot, because of certain resemblance to plot design with his earlier masterpieces? For starters there seemed to be some repetitive themes revisited, but that I'm fine with because it made it easier to click with and connect. Just like how Niccolo and his squeeze Mavi (Daniela Silverio) spend considerable time at an emotionally empty high society party reminiscent of that in L'Notte, where they nurse issues from the heart, as well as for one to come to terms with the other's secret admirer.

Surely the sex is good, and the movie wastes absolutely no time in getting beneath the sheets for some surprisingly erotic time of a horizontal tango complete with underarm forests, but naturally physical love doesn't compensate for emotional depth absent between the lovers, highlighting something inherent wrong in their relationship. Having anonymous threats made to Niccola also didn't help, as he experienced first hand how these threats got carried out to hurt those he loved. We spend a bit of time with their attempts to escape from a stalker, and even had a technically brilliant sequence involving a deep mist that I thought contemporary movies like Frank Darabont's The Mist, or the video game movie adaptation of Shallow Hill, had taken a huge leaf from.

For Niccolo's inability to declare his love and address their conflicts, we get a dose of L'Avventura here. Mavi disappears, and we don't really get to see much of her thereafter. Niccolo tries to launch a search, and we get into the second half of the movie where we see his new relationship with a young actress Ida (Christine Boisson). But of course there are issues to grapple with here, and I thought was something I'd understand as well, and that's the continued holding out of the candle for someone else, together with the notion of love versus need, and serving as an emotional crutch. It's not fair of course, but there's more challenges ahead for Niccola in his relationship with Ida to accept, but by the time we get to it, I'd more or less didn't really care for Niccola anymore.

Which probably contrasted to a statement which Lorenzo Codelli shared about what Antonioni said regarding this movie being about its characters. I thought his earlier movies had stronger and more interesting characters, or at least those who can hook my attention down and allowed me to care for them a bit, versus those in this movie. Then again, I suspect I may be on a different wavelength since I enjoyed most of Antonioni's earliest works in the 50s, as compared to the more contemporary ones shown this week so far.