The Eclipse = L'eclisse

This, the third in Antonioni’s “cycle of sentiments”, begins with the break up of Vittoria (Monica Vitti) and her partner Riccardo. The film then follows Vittoria and Piero (Alain Delon) while a love affair is cautiously entered into. At times using plot and dialogue to spell out the themes, for the most part the confusion of the characters is suggested more carefully by the film’s surfaces, both in its use of composition and in the soundtrack. There are also intense concentrations on the surfaces and the figures that create character, but these are often diminished by reframing or set in tension with the solid forms of the architecture. ‘L’eclisse’ is preoccupied with immateriality and it is by way of edging away from any clear definition that it maintains a distinctly ‘modern’ air. Italian language with English subtitles.