I remember reading once that no one knew how to shoot buildings like Antonioni, and I think it's true.

His style was so smooth that the way he shot physical landscape and the way he shot the human landscape were intertwined and equally sensual. That's why Monica Vitti was such a perfect actor for his movies. Her blankness was similar to the blankness of the landscape, which contributed further to the themes of alienation.

But for some reason, his films didn't depress me, and I recall leaving the theater (there was a retrospective at the British Film Academy a couple of years back) feeling light on my toes and almost airless. I felt like I had melted into my surroundings and was utterly anonymous. If Alain Delon would have turned the corner I wouldn't have blinked an eye. But it was a great feeling, not alienating at all.

I guess that's the power of the cinema: even when you leave the movie, it doesn't always leave you.

Yes, to those who find his films dull I would reply that you are not looking hard enough. However stale some might find his themes of alienation and disconnection within modernity, his sheer visual mastery is unimpeachable. I understand this "airless" feeling you speak of; for me it's a sort of perceptual dilation. For a brief period after an Antonioni film (Red Desert especially), I tend to be more attuned to the pure formal properties of the objects around me, architecture in particular. And really, I think this abstract visual element serves as a corrective to how his characters interact with their environments. Whereas they often feel trapped and imprisoned by their surroundings, Antonioni captures the latent beauty all around them. It's all there. You only have to look.

This was the most striking thing about L'Avventura for me -- all the structural surfaces of garden hedges, house walls, and that island seemed to be sidling up to the camera and nudging it around instead of the camera taking them in. This is going to be a weird analogy, but fitting: it's like Antonioni was using the camera the way a blind man uses his hands.