Those Moving Pictures: L'Eclisse (1962)

Unfortunately, I did not watch any movies yesterday, as I have instead been hanging out with actual human beings and going places, in addition to watching some televisions. Anyway, I finally finished the L'Avventura Trilogy early this morning.

I re-watched L'Avventura this past year for a class, expecting to hate it as much as I did two years ago, but miraculously I didn't. I wasn't bored to tears and I actually enjoyed the act of viewing it. It's real pretty, folks. Thus, I decided to watch Antonioni's triology of L'Avventura, La Notte, and L'Eclisse from 1960, 61, and 62, respectively. Now these are some powerhouse movies, regardless of their varying levels of engagement and quality, and it's really impressive that they came out one year after the other. L'Avvenutra is still probably my favorite, and La Notte is definitely my least. It was very very boring and it dragged, even though Marcello Mastroianni is a force of nature [and a babe].

L'Eclisse is probably the most striking of the three in terms of mise-en-scene [to indulge in some assholic vocabulary]. But really, people, this movie is so gorgeous that it maybe makes up for it being quite a long, slow movie. Monica Vitti does what she does best -- stares off into the void, looks profoundly sad, and ponders the nature of modernity and industrialization. This shit is deep, guys.

As much as I liked this movie, there were some major problems with it. 1. It is over two hours, and it drags a lot. 2. There are some racism issues. There is a disturbing scene during which Monica Vitti's character and her neighbor visit another neighbor who has just returned from Kenya. She shares photos of Kenyans, whom she calls "monkeys." Monica Vitti even dresses up in Kenyan clothing, puts black face/bronzer? on, and does a bit of dancing around the apartment. Yikes, indeed.

"We're lucky they're still in trees and have barely lost their tails."

So, there are Problems in L'Eclisse, but one thing that I really like is how much Antonioni loves Alfred Hitchcock. My favorite shot in the movie is of a car being pulled out of a lake with a corpse's hand showing. It's totes reminiscent of the last shot in Psycho. Great job.