My first Antonioni film. I was shocked by the parallels with Godard's Le Mepris. According the interview with a film critic included on the DVD the film continues Antonioni's investigation of the predicament of romantic love in a world of rabid consumption and commercialization. The same film critic insists that what really makes the film interesting is the way Antonioni is able to present ordinary, quotidian objects and experiences in ways that make them alien and unfamiliar.
It's certainly a very odd movie, with a disturbing, strange and really interesting closing scene. The film's closing consists of a series of different shots of the same street corner that has served as the stage for several meetings between the couple at the heart of the film. I was initially bored and finally fascinated at the way Antonioni subjects the corner to his relentless attention as dusk passes into nightfall. Both characters are absent from the scene, the superficial implication being that their promised meeting never takes place, but this last very odd scene seems to exist outside of the film's narrative for me - an unsettling epilogue which refuses to speak to anything as banal as a happy ending, or even a sad ending. Pretentious perhaps, but at least it's ambitious.
Here's Wikipedia's synopsis: At dawn on July 10, 1961 a young literary translator, Vittoria (Monica Vitti) breaks off her affair with a writer and begins a summer romance with Piero (Alain Delon), an energetic young stockbroker. They are unable to form a steady relationship and shortly before sunset at 20:00, September 10, 1961 they seemingly fail to meet as agreed on the corner of Viale del Ciclismo and Viale della Tecnica by the construction site of a new apartment building in the Esposizione Universale Roma (EUR), a modern suburban neighbourhood south of Rome where Vittoria lives.
L'eclisse (The Eclipse) was also my first sighting of the exceptionally striking Monica Vitti. The beautiful styling of the objects, apartments and locations is very Prada - or at least makes one understand why Italy managed to stake its claim as the arbiter of a certain kind of style.
