Michelangelo Antonioni’s first film in color, from 1964, is his most mysterious and awe-inspiring work. The accoutrements of modernity – heavy industry, atomic energy, petroleum waste, and a little boy’s scientific precocity – converge to shatter the psyche of an engineer’s wife in the Italian port of Ravenna. Giuliana (Monica Vitti) hasn’t regained her composure after a monthlong hospital stay following a suicide attempt, but the essence of her problem is metaphysical, and only her husband’s boss (Richard Harris) seems to understand. The film portrays Giuliana’s breakdown as a crisis of conscience and identity. The metallic river, the yellow poison gas and orange flames that spout from smokestacks, and the fields of debris are the film’s true main characters, pulling the strings of the human puppets who depend on them