I don’t have the time and inclination to do deeply into either, but wanted to make some comments.
Was Tarkovsky’s “The Sacrifice” in part a response to this line:
Sandro: I have no desire to sacrifice myself… why? It’s idiotic to sacrifice oneself… why? For Whom?
Antonioni was an atheist. The two movies of his I’ve watched really had no point or purpose, just people wandering aimlessly.
Contrast this with, say, Nostalghia, where our hero dies carrying a candle from one side of an empty pool to another. This was an act of meaning, of purpose.
It is difficult, in my view, to overestimate the latent psychological damage done by the idea that life is meaningless, and that we are merely puppets of hormones, genetics and environmental programming.
We have invented science, have we not? Why not use science to combat these ideas? It is hardly a radical idea asking people to be honest, to pursue their own method with actual integrity.