I can only wonder how a country like Italy, which experienced such enormous loss of life and property in World War II, 17 years later was willing to finance a large number of complex and intelligent films like L'ECLISSE, which could not possibly do well at the box office.It is sad to see that the reflective, thoughtful movie is basically extinct these days, even in Italy, that land of culture, knowledge and beauty. It is, above all, a sad comment on the human mind which, at the zenith of its technological knowledge, is sadly losing touch with cinema that addresses inner issues such as L'ECLISSE does, namely the vagaries of love hand in hand with the thirst for materialism and sex, and the inexorable passing of time.Alain Delon is excellent in his portrayal of a stock exchange broker who, as Victoria (Vitti) points out, does not stop still but is constantly doing something to make money or to satisfy his lust. Vitti is beautiful and elegant beyond words, but never seems satisfied with those who fall in love with her, just as her mother is never satisfied with the money she makes - and loses - at the Stock Exchange. Love is as beyond reach for Vittoria as distant Kenya and the snows on the Kilimanjaro.Photography is superlative (especially the chiaroscuro of the more intimate moments between the leads); screenplay is solid enough to prevent the film sliding into pretentiousness, and to keep you interested, right up to the completely original and unique ending, reflecting the essence of life in all its indifference, inevitability - and passing of time.Early in the movie, there is a sequence at Verona aerodrome, Verona being the town of Romeo and Juliet. L'ECLISSE is nowhere near as tragic... but, as the saying goes, all is fair in love and war.Excellent as the two leads and supporting cast are, direction is sublime, allowing the spectator to sense the dynamics of relationships, and fill the gaps. Antonioni's direction shows him at the top of his considerable skills - only BLOW-UP would be (marginally) better.Naturally, in this age of constant change and fast tracking, few would waste time on a thought-provoking film - which is a pity, as it is bound to further erode the audience's level of exigency, and the quality of current movie-making.Grazie mille, Michelangelo!

The story is that of the dissolution of Vittoria's relationship with Riccardo and her attempt to take up with Piero, a young stock trader. That is pretty much it for story, the rest is style. The first scene lasts almost fifteen minutes and sets the dominant mood and tone for the rest of the movie. The scene details the end of the relationship between Riccardo and Vittoria; it opens with a long shot of Riccardo staring disconsolately into space, then the camera moves to Vittoria, equally bummed out. Nothing is spoken for the first six minutes and then what follows is some anguished dialog inter-cut with images of Vittoria framed against different parts of the room: at windows, on a couch, against a door, in front of a painting, and so forth. I understand this scene is to illustrate the breakdown in communication between these two, and Vittoria's isolation, but it went on agonizingly long.There are two scenes filmed in the Rome Stock Exchange. The first of these goes on for five minutes, and the second lasts for fifteen minutes. That chaos reigns in those scenes is established within a few minutes and I came away from them thinking that they had lasted long beyond their relevance. I found that almost all scenes went on way too long.There are scenes that emphasize how lonely and isolated Vittoria is. In many of the exterior scenes, Vittoria is imaged against a background devoid of all but an occasional person: isolated streets, drab buildings, empty fields. I understand the message being sent is how difficult it is to gain purchase on a meaningful life in an uncaring urban environment, but I did not feel that I needed to be hit over the head with that.There is a racist scene that may make many contemporary viewers uncomfortable. It was just one scene of several that seemed to come out of nowhere only to puzzle me as to why it was there.The thing that saved this from being totally tedious was the spectacular black and white cinematography. The Blu-ray DVD is incredibly pristine, particularly considering that this movie is over fifty years old.The commentary tract by Richard Peña is of the kind that gives film critics a bad name as being effete snobs. He sees significance in every detail. For example, he remarks on the opening scene as being abstract, offering a fractured space that is almost cubist. I simply saw two people who were several decades away from having access to Prozac. Peña remarks on the pagan roots of the behavior in the stock exchange. I finally had to cease listening to his bloviating.The mood created by this overly long movie is distinctly downbeat.

Billed as the last episode of Michelangelo's unofficial "Incommunicability Trilogy", after L'avventura (1960) and La notte (1961), the film's structure is as elusive as the latter part of L'avventura (a 6/10), while the pathos is not as empowering as La notte (a 8/10). As a result a in-between score of 7 out of 10 is my rating. It's an elliptical essay about a mental plight of a woman's inner state, Michelangelo uses plentiful close-ups to enhance a visceral image of the troubled soul of our protagonist Vittoria (Monica Vitti), and the nihilistic struggle of any frayed individual is so incisive as that one can not get out of its grip afterwards. It's inherits the energizing effect of suffering on character, particularly female character throughout the trilogy, Antonioni's muse Monica Vitti exposes herself without any lines of theatrical rendering, her emotion inward is lumbering and stressful to viewers, which could be divined as the auteur's intention. Her counterpart, a youthful Alain Delon though billed first, is underplayed, emits very limited evocation compared to Vitti.The tumultuous control of the stock market scenes is an emblem of Antonioni's remarkable progress of character introspection under a social context (almost harks back to Hollywood luminary Frank Capra's expertise). Nearly without any score, a bleak realistic setting with deployment of the natural sound again testify that Antonioni is the backbone of New Wave movement not only in Italy but also in the whole planet! The commitment to beauty, grace and sensitivity is by and large foregrounded. A marvelous almost 8-minutes-long non-relevant ciphers montage ending is unexpected mesmerizing, and the ending scene of the radiation of street lights converges into a quasi-eclipse phenomenon delivers an impeccable finale for the film and the trilogy, an incommunicatively mundane world alone can be an endless source for filmmakers to excavate!

Physically beautiful, with an astounding last 5 minutes that elevates the film to another level. Like all Antonioni films, this might improve on 2nd viewing, but less obviously than with the better known L'Avventura. This story is less mysterious, less surreal, so there is less a sense that one is missing layers. A woman leaves her fiancé, falls for a young stockbroker, and we see that everyone cares more about money and 'things' than human relationships. The scenes in the stock exchange are amazingly shot, and every frame uses architecture and framing to underline the themes of alienation and the emptiness of modern life. Monica Vitti and Alain Delon make the two leads more human and real than earlier Antonioni main characters. But a number of scenes just feel clunky, even if beautiful, and some ideas seem overstated or over-repeated. That said, the experimental last five minutes, which puts the themes in a wider, more global context, is very moving and special. And to be fair many love this even more than I, though not in the the near universal embrace of L'Avventura. Note: The Criterion disc has some annoying flickering in the transfer, confirmed as a built-in problem after some on-line research.