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By contrast, Nicollo’s physical relationship with Ida is expressed through passionate kisses, extended embraces and hand-holding and a less “idealized” expression of the female body: the only time we see Ida naked (fully) is as she is talking to Nicollo while on the toilet, wiping herself. I don’t take the absence of the sex act in the Ida portion of Identification to mean that they aren’t having any, or to set up some false madonna/whore dichotomy, but to suggest, by shorthand, that Ida is providing him with something Mavi couldn’t, even as he remains “obsessed” (Tomas Milian’s restrained and occasionally one-note performance never quite suggests an adequate amount of obsession to accompany the demands of the plot. He seems appropriately weary, though).

Antonioni keeps a fair amount of ambiguity throughout - Is Nicollo vindicated in his suspicions of Mavi’s faithlessness? Like the protagonist of Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, he seems tormented by the not improbable possibility that his beloved prefers relations with women to men - but sacrifices a lot of this for an honest and blunt dialogue between Nicollo and Ida at the end, after she receives some unexpected news. Too much is taken for granted, I think, in this conversation. The same turn of events could have been handled with a lot less dialogue to achieve a similar emotional pull on the audience. We may already suspect how Nicollo might react, but having the both of them speculate on it renders the moment inert.

The final minutes suggest that Antonioni may want us to consider human sexual and emotional entanglements to be as fantastical as a sci-fi tale requiring the greatest suspension of disbelief. The parting image is visually stimulating and yet suggests the leap to a certain naïveté that I can’t quite force myself to enact. Accompanied by pieces of melancholic piano music in some moments, and an early ‘80s new wave score courtesy of Tangerine Dream, Japan, XTC, and OMD among others, Identification of a Woman ultimately feels like Antonioni’s stab at an ‘80s romantic comedy - if you substitute ennui for romantic and controlled bemusement for comedy.

It doesn’t become a parody of his style as I imagine his detractors would and may have held forth, but even the second time through it doesn’t enrapture me like some of his works do. And if I can’t buy into its sci-fi trappings (metaphorical or otherwise) viewing it for the first time on the 30th anniversary of its theatrical release, the 15th of its official American engagement, and the first of its DVD release, feels enough like time travel of a sort to allow me some empathy, and not a little interest, for the nature of his experiment.

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