L'Eclisse

It only takes a few films to become familiar with the methodic ways of Michelangelo Antonioni. Themes of alienation, disconnection, romance without the romance and dealing with an ambiguous existential way of life. It's fascinating but challenging. I came into L'Eclisse wanting to love it because I love L'Avventura and Blowup but deliberately hard to connect to. We're thrown into a vague but disheartening scenario with depressed characters and just have to follow down that road. It has rich cinematography that has beautiful composition, but an gut- sinking emptiness. It's almost too precise and too self-aware. But that's the beauty of the film, its aesthetic is not supposed to be pleasing, even though artistically it should be. In fact, it's painful. Painful to watch the busiest life of the film being at the stock market while the rest of nature is desolate yet so picturesque. Machines and technology are prominent throughout the film and often physically get in the way of human relationships. The film is a profound and quietly poignant statement on human desires and insecurities, if a little held back by a touch of pretence and too cold for its own good.

8/10

Pros: 1. The scope of the film is very impressive, particularly in regards to the plethora of extras and different locations used. 2. The usage of prolonged silences and wide shots really helps to ram home the adverse effects of the break-up with Riccardo (Francisco Rabal), and the feelings that naturally accompany a break-up. 3. Both Alain Delon (Piero) and Monica Vitti (Vittoria) give incredible performances. 4. The cinematography is absolutely beautiful, especially when the camera pulls back and allows you to take in the scenery completely. 5. The comedy, though infrequent, is hilarious and stems from genuinely grounded character interactions. 6. Monica Vitti and Alain Delon harbour electric chemistry with each other, and it really shines through during the intimately romantic scenes.

Cons: 1. The movie is ridiculously slow-paced. Even though the reason for its slow-pace is clear, it still feels unnecessarily slow. 2. The stock market story-line is exceedingly uninteresting, and far too much screen-time is dedicated towards it. 3. None of the characters engaging which makes it difficult to care. This is unfortunate as the run-time is over 2 hours long. 4. The last 5-10 minutes drag on needlessly.

Smart and moody, this film is not only about emotional Eclipse, it is about the eclipse of the old society as it changes, and also about how architectural changes eclipse older style, and more importantly, nature. There are really smart and insightful comments here on changing racial attitudes, and the disparities between rich, poor, and the people who don't mind cannibalizing the disenfranchised. All this commentary done with the subtlety of the slowing growing suburbs that our leading lady lives in.

Monica Vitti plays our "everywoman" who is our window into the Director's mind, but also herself a mere dot on the landscape. Early on, we see her throw away exactly what she seems to be looking for, only to pursue it in exactly the wrong place/person.

The film has a look of a sci-fi horror movie, but the horror here is emotional desolation, the destruction of nature/natural-ness, and the looming threat of nuclear war. This film, so cleanly represents the era when "duck and cover" was not only a physical act, it was an emotional state.

If you don't like film as art, you will be completely lost by the architectural city-scape ending montage, and the lack of traditional film closure. This is not a light evening of movie entertainment, but it is film making at it's non-verbal, eloquent best. Captivating, thought provoking, and meaty.

In the suburb of Rome, the translator Vittoria (Monica Vitti) breaks her engagement with her boyfriend, the writer Ricardo (Francisco Rabal), after a troubled night. Vittoria goes to downtown to meet her mother (Lilla Brignone), who is addicted in Stock Market, and she meets the broker Piero (Alain Delon) in a day of crash in the Stock Market. The materialist Piero and the absent Vittoria begins a monosyllabic relationship.

"L'Eclisse" is a love story in the world of Michelangelo Antoniani, where the lack of communication, emptiness and loneliness in the big city prevails over the human feelings. The first ten or fifteen minutes with Vittoria and Riccardo alone in his apartment, practically without any words (actually very few words are spoken), is amazing, showing a couple whose love and relationship is completely exhausted. The scenes in the Stock Market of Rome are also very impressive. Monica Vitti, the favorite actress of Antonioni, shows a stunning beauty and her alienation of feelings is expressed by her face and few words along the story. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Eclipse" ("The Eclipse")

The Eclipse denotes Michelangelo Antonioni 's flawless taste,and his powerful,virile instinct for strong compositions;this elegant and suave movie is one of the cinema's best pieces of poetry (I must also confess that I prefer this early,younger,"black and white" and peninsular Michelangelo Antonioni;he was 50 years when he made L'ECLISSE).Before he approached the '60s counterculture,Antonioni made a few strong movies not only for the intellectuals but also about intellectuals.

This one is an incredibly rich movie,a movie about many things:about solitude,financial pawns,a woman's indefinite aspirations,the vibrating city beauty,and the heart's resilience,the woman soul's density,the urban aesthetic;and also about:greed,people that search gropingly .Little wheels in the gearing of the stock exchange;the stock exchange's crushing machine.Antonioni is caustic and sober.His theme,the human monad,is inexhaustible.The naturalness,the charm,the intensity,the integrity,the width of this film must be mentioned.Antonioni proved that,for his cinema,experiments are always ways and means,while the most intense poetry is the aim.(Each great director is an experimenter;all great directors are experimenters,only to be better poets.)

Antonioni is one of the three directors who,according to Averty,never made a bad movie (and Antonioni's creation was,for almost two decades, quite abundant;it is only after Blowup (1966) that he went slow,making some seven movies in so many decades).His movies don't have a "sockdolager",that's part of what makes them so good and endearing.Experimenting in countless ways,Antonioni never forgot to be a poet,and never failed.His aesthetic aim has a side of ingenuity and directness that enchants in an unfailing way.

And what is Antonioni's poetry?It is this compact texture,this density of the people and of the life,the striking immediacy.It is amazing also how Antonioni put all of himself in this beautiful movie,The Eclipse.

Like a few others,The Eclipse is one of the movies that give us the taste of what cinema can be.