L’Eclisse (1962)

For all those times you’ve met some­one who you think is real­ly awe­some, you had a great time with them and, due to forces beyond your com­pre­hen­sion, you sud­den­ly drift apart. And then, you nev­er see that per­son again. The desire is extin­guished, whol­ly. And then you meet anoth­er per­son who is real­ly awe­some. You have a great time with them. And then, due to forces… etc.

Michae­lan­ge­lo Antonioni’s 1962 mas­ter­work con­cerns this human para­dox, but also offers a com­men­tary on what those ​“forces” may con­sist of. L’Eclisse says that the world is mere­ly a dis­trac­tion from the seri­ous busi­ness of love, that walls, doors, jobs, clothes, streets, parks, trees, cars and pret­ty much all phys­i­cal mat­ter – includ­ing cork face­paint – dou­ble (beyond their prime func­tion) as a bar­ri­er between the pure for­mu­la­tion of a mean­ing­ful roman­tic con­nec­tion and our own list­less fac­to­ry set­ting. It’s a bit­ter­sweet film, about the impos­si­bil­i­ty of love, the impos­si­bil­i­ty of romance, the impos­si­bil­i­ty of ever con­nect­ing with anoth­er per­son on any­thing more than a pri­mal level.

Mon­i­ca Vitti’s Vit­to­ria is seen ditch­ing her boyfriend, and then is quick­ly thrown togeth­er with Alain Delon’s dick-swing­ing stock trad­er, Piero. There’s flir­ta­tious pat­ter and light canoodling as they gam­bol around the streets of Rome, lap­ping up one another’s com­pa­ny. It takes time for them to reach the point where a third-par­ty view­er can see that they have devel­oped a bond, as if they’re doubt­ing their own poten­tial, as if they know that the odds are against them being hap­py and that dis­ap­point­ment ensues. What’s the point of it all? We’re just specks of dust float­ing through an indif­fer­ent galaxy towards obliv­ion? Why bother?

As this ten­u­ous love affair plays out and reach­es a point that appears to be its apex, the cou­ple just drift apart. Like that. They have a point at which they plan to meet, and nei­ther both­ers show­ing up. For the grand finale, Anto­nioni treats us to one of cinema’s most stag­ger­ing cos­mic finales, a jour­ney through time, space and con­scious­ness that beat 2001: A Space Odyssey to the punch by some six years.

Sud­den­ly, it is revealed that this emp­ty street cor­ner is the sub­ject of the film. That noth­ing­ness – the missed con­nec­tion – is what it’s all about. The cam­era then mon­i­tors the sur­round­ings before set­tling on a street lamp, a glar­ing sig­ni­fi­er for the fiery death of mankind.