Antonioni’s L’Eclisse is, according to its star, Monica Vitti, ‘the story of a love that lasts for a short time – as brief as an eclipse’. Others have talked about its ‘sublime weirdness and disaffecting qualities’, the use of ‘discontinuous cutting’, or raved about the final seven minutes; personally, I think that exploring alienation is all well and good, but that alienating a movie from its audience is a bit pointless.
Whatever, the movie follows Vittoria (Monica Vitti) from the end of one shallow and passionless love affair with a writer, through the start and abrupt end of another shallow and passionless affair, with a stockbroker. The only time Vittoria appears to experience any emotion is when she sees some African tribal photos in a neighbour’s home and is inspired to perform a ‘tribal’ dance in blackface; there was probably meant to some point being made there but, if so, it passed me by in its triteness and crassness, not to mention the general boredom.
Franco Freda was key makeup artist.