Slideshow
L’ECLISSE
Italy, 1962
Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni
With Alain Delon, Monica Vitti
In Italian and English with English subtitles
Approx. 126 min. DCP.
“Michelangelo Antonioni’s ennui-soaked 1962 satire of modern life announces its intentions over the opening credits, as a perky Italian pop song is muscled aside to make way for a series of doom-laden orchestral crashes. ‘Abandon pleasure’, seems to be the message. Don’t expect to leave this particular trip to the movies thinking that western life is anything but a hollow charade. L'ECLISSE is the poetic story of a beautiful but bored young woman (Monica Vitti) who deserts her dull lover and embarks upon a tentative affair with dashing but sociopathically materialistic stockbroker Alain Delon. Their courtship offers moments of happiness — they take great joy in mocking other, less self-aware couples — but as Vitti gazes wistfully into the uncertain future and Delon lusts after money and possessions, you just know it’s not going to work out.” – Time Out
Reviews
“The intervening years appear not to have diminished its impact as an innovative work of cinema, nor as a wider critique of the age in which we live. The film retains a formal playfulness, with its open form offering different ways of watching and projecting onto the characters. This is endlessly fascinating at a time when there are few genuinely innovative voices in world cinema; and the overall atmosphere of ennui, so beautifully constructed through sound and image, still feels heavily familiar.”
– David Sin, British Film Institute
“There is intellectual rigour, cinematographer Gianni Di Venanzo's discombobulating use of angles and aspect and that superb no-show last scene.”
– Tara Brady, Irish Times
“Retains a bleak and dreamlike tone that you won't find anywhere else.”
– Tom Huddleston, Time Out