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L'Eclisse (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1962)
A masterpiece of tone and composition, this glorious piece of trademark Antoniennui lit up Cannes in 1962 and sparkled in my living room in 2008. Antonioni continues to develop the constant themes in his work; social anxiety, the fragmented nature of post war Italy, artificiality of human emotion etc.
For me Antonioni was one of the great painters of European Cinema. Although Antonioni often eschews any sense of plot, the sheer beauty of his work continues to utterly mesmerise me. The gorgeous Monica Vitti is simply poetic as the sexually repressed Vittoria. She pines for love but struggles to hide her difficulties in expressing it. Never is she aware of where to find it or what to do with it. Its a beautiful conception and an unsettling meditation on the subtleties of body and soul.
Alain Delon, who is probably better known for his gangster roles as Jef Costello and Corey in Melville's Le Samourai (1967) and Le Cercle Rouge (1970), gives a magnificent turn as ambitious stockbroker Piero. Like Vittoria, Piero lacks any sense of direction; his afternoons are spent in a bustling bank turned stockroom competing with other disenchanted Italians attempting to turn their thousands into millions.
Piero and Vittoria are one of the most interesting Antonioni couples. Although they lack the desperation of Sandro and Claudio from L'Avventura (Antonioni's masterwork in my opinion), they are equally perplexed by love and its intracacies. They know they want and need it but are at pains to discover how to access their emotions. This is reaffirmed through Antonioni's ambiguous closing sequence; a melding of used story components and other, similarly bewildered couples.
Grade: A
A masterpiece of tone and composition, this glorious piece of trademark Antoniennui lit up Cannes in 1962 and sparkled in my living room in 2008. Antonioni continues to develop the constant themes in his work; social anxiety, the fragmented nature of post war Italy, artificiality of human emotion etc.
For me Antonioni was one of the great painters of European Cinema. Although Antonioni often eschews any sense of plot, the sheer beauty of his work continues to utterly mesmerise me. The gorgeous Monica Vitti is simply poetic as the sexually repressed Vittoria. She pines for love but struggles to hide her difficulties in expressing it. Never is she aware of where to find it or what to do with it. Its a beautiful conception and an unsettling meditation on the subtleties of body and soul.
Alain Delon, who is probably better known for his gangster roles as Jef Costello and Corey in Melville's Le Samourai (1967) and Le Cercle Rouge (1970), gives a magnificent turn as ambitious stockbroker Piero. Like Vittoria, Piero lacks any sense of direction; his afternoons are spent in a bustling bank turned stockroom competing with other disenchanted Italians attempting to turn their thousands into millions.
Piero and Vittoria are one of the most interesting Antonioni couples. Although they lack the desperation of Sandro and Claudio from L'Avventura (Antonioni's masterwork in my opinion), they are equally perplexed by love and its intracacies. They know they want and need it but are at pains to discover how to access their emotions. This is reaffirmed through Antonioni's ambiguous closing sequence; a melding of used story components and other, similarly bewildered couples.
Grade: A