Identification of a Woman (1982) review

A filmmaker without a project (or a wife), Niccolò (Tomas Milian), starts a relationship with Mavi (Daniela Silverio) despite vague threats against them (which increases his paranoia), then he takes her to a cabin, she vanishes, he continues to look for her (while romancing another woman, Ida, played by Christine Boisson) and lands a new movie proposal that he has difficulty casting.  This has many of the typical Antonioni "themes" - society on the brink of collapse, feeling lost in the world, people having trouble communicating with each other, etc. - and adds to it (but isn't sure what to do with) the idea of sexual fluidity among women: Mavi, it turns out, isn't heterosexual (which would explain why their intimate scenes together are a little ... off).  While it sometimes plays into his worst tendencies and gets too wrapped up into itself and relishes being intentionally murky - the scene where Niccolò literally gets lost in a fog may be a playful visual metaphor for how the audience might feel in the auteur's view of the world - the sense of mystery and methodical directorial control hold it together.  Antonioni made this when he was 70 (he was born in 1912), and you have to wonder if he wasn't starting to worry about his own mortality: the possibility of life after death is mentioned, and the final shot makes you wonder if his mind wasn't elsewhere.  You can take the man out of the Church but you can't take the Catholicism out of the mind.