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In this scene of romantic separation, we see a couple in a waiting room next to a platform. The woman asks the man not to wait for the train’s departure and to leave before it goes. As she leaves the waiting room alone to board the train, we’re under the impression that the man has followed her request and left the station. At least this is what the camera asks us to believe, from its position on the platform.
Antonioni is in fact playing a trick on us the likes of which is not often seen in his work.

As she boards the train and closes the door of her compartment, it starts to pull out of the station and she sits by the window to watch the platform passing by. We return to the interior of the waiting room from where the man watches the train leave. He makes as if to leave the station and then at the last possible moment swiftly turns around and sets after the train at a pace. Filmed in a rhythmical long take he runs after the train and manages to catch it by leaping up on to the last carriage. Their separation has proven impossible.