Antonioni masterfully conflates character with landscape, body with architectural mood. Buildings, squares, archways, and tunnels appear crushingly more durable than the characters who navigate them, making the characters seem like dwarves by comparison.

Observe how he uses architecture, its empty spaces, and languorous silences to reflect the spiritual malaise of his characters. Isolation, guilt, fleeting pleasures, and disposability are the ills his characters suffer and seek refuge from. Economically, he focuses on middle-class alienation (with one notable exception) and the difficulty these individuals have connecting with others, themselves, and their feelings.

Notice how he connects these eternal-like buildings to the ephemeral inner lives of his characters. The result is stunning and visually captivating. Also, pay attention to how his films oscillate between narrative and abstraction, a talent Fellini attempted throughout his career but never mastered. Antonioni achieves a poetic depth and visual enchantment similar to Fellini, but unlike Fellini, the meaning of his abstract images is always tied to brooding narrative surfaces, with characters who ache, rot, and despair over situations that resonate deeply. Personal feelings, rather than shimmering spectacles, are the substance of Antonioni’s work.

He’s probably my favorite Italian auteur next to the great neorealists of his era.