In each of [Antonioni's early films N. U. (Nettezza Urbana), L'Amorosa Menzogna, and Superstizione] the accent is, far more than in most documentaries, placed fairly and squarely on the people: the street-sweeper, the hopefuls on the fringes of show-business, the camera-shy old men and women of Camarino weaving their spells…. And the thing which all these people have in common, as pictured by Antonioni, is their solitude: the sorcerers are as alone in the modern world as the forgotten fisherman of the Po: the 'performers' in the-photo-romances are pathetic in their hopeless ambitions and set apart by the tawdry glamour which surrounds them in the eyes of their equally foolish and pathetic readers; even with the street-cleaners, who do a job of work just like anyone else and no doubt lead perfectly ordinary family lives, the emphasis is placed rather on their aspect as 'forgotten men', moving unnoticed...