大象传媒

The third in Antonioni's trilogy of films about the fragility of relationships in the contemporary world, the monochrome L'Eclisse unfolds in early 60s Rome, where a translator Vittoria (Monica Vitta) breaks up with her lover and begins a tentative affair with her mother's dashing stockbroker Piero (Alain Delon). The plot is minimal: what's remarkable here is how Antonioni creates and maintains the atmosphere of alienation, and the striking performances from the leading actors.

There are two key settings in L'Eclisse. Firstly there's the soulless EUR district, where Vittoria lives, with its modernist architecture, half-completed buildings and eerily deserted streets. Secondly there's the panic-swept Stock Exchange, an environment that perfectly suits Piero's shallow exuberance. Meanwhile glimpsed newspaper headlines ("Peace is dead") heighten the mood of Cold War anxiety.

"A FILM RICH IN MYSTERY AND ARTISTRY"

Antonioni's director of photography Gianni De Venanzo frames the characters with precision, shooting them at doorways, behind windows or in front of railings and fences to suggest their entrapment. "Here it's all a big effort, even love," sighs the enigmatic Vittoria, yet there's something compelling about this woman's self-absorption and elusiveness as she wanders endlessly through the city and responds ambivalently to Piero's advances. The final montage sequence, in which the protagonists are completely absent and the camera visits the site of a rendezvous they have missed, is a daring conclusion to a film rich in mystery and artistry.

In Italian with English subtitles.