☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½
L’Eclisse (1962) – M. Antonioni
Antonioni’s last black & white film is all surfaces and shapes – so
much so that the eye is often fooled and distracted and eventually the plot
drifts away and only the landscape remains. This is not to say that the plot
doesn’t make a statement (about alienation):
Monica Vitti breaks up with her writer fiance and then drifts into a
relationship with Alain Delon’s stockbroker – or does she? Vitti is anything
but certain. Delon is more committed to materialism
and there are a few signs to suggest that Antonioni sees this as problematic
for relationships and for life (for example, a classic shot interposing a huge
pillar at the stock market between the couple).
But I haven’t properly “decoded” the film – and it might offer rich
rewards to those who do (for example, could the more “primitive” culture in
Kenya be more ideal?). Or perhaps the
distance between the characters, their inability or failure to communicate with
each other, comes across clearly enough to any passive viewer. Antonioni made a
career documenting our quixotic search for meaning and the various delusions
that seem to suggest we have found it only to fall away leaving nothingness
again. However, there is nothing here to
suggest that the scales can’t one day fall from our eyes – perhaps Vitti and Delon
have figured this mystery out. But, if so, they’ve gone and left us, the
viewers, alone and still searching.
No comments:
Post a Comment