Identification of a Woman (1982)

The movie director Niccolo has just been left by his wife. This gives him the idea of making a movie about women's relationships. He starts to search for a woman who can play the leading ... See full summary »

Director:

Michelangelo Antonioni

Writers:

Michelangelo Antonioni (story), Michelangelo Antonioni (screenplay)

Stars:

Tomas Milian, Daniela Silverio, Christine Boisson

1 win & 4 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
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
Giampaolo Saccarola	...	The gorilla (as Gianpaolo Saccarola)
Dado Ruspoli	...	Mavi's father (as Alessandro Ruspoli)
Arianna De Rosa	...	Mavi's friend
Sergio Tardioli	...	Butcher
Itaco Nardulli	...	Lucio
Paola Dominguín	...	Girl in window
Pier Francesco Aiello	...	Young man at party (as Pierfrancesco Aiello)

Storyline

The movie director Niccolo has just been left by his wife. This gives him the idea of making a movie about women's relationships. He starts to search for a woman who can play the leading part in the movie - but also in his own life...

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Plot Keywords:

female nudity | pubic hair | female underarm hair | cult director | female frontal nudity | 

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Genres:

Drama | Romance

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Official Sites:

MMr Bongo Films

Country:

Italy France

Language:

Italian English French

Release Date:

15 November 1996 (USA)

Also Known As:

Identification of a Woman

Filming Locations:

Incir De Paolis Studios, Rome, Lazio, Italy

Company Credits

Production Co:

Iterfilm, Gaumont, Rai 2

Technical Specs

Runtime:

130 min

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

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.

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Quotes

Niccolo: Bloody hell... what a fixation!

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Connections

Featured in Tonino Guerra: A Poet in the Movies (2008)

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Soundtracks

Music of the Trees
Written by Steve Hillage and Monique Giraudy (as Miquette Giraudy)
Performed by Steve Hillage
Published by Virgin Music Publishers

User Reviews

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.