If one is expecting a conventional narrative, character development, or a compelling story, L'eclisse is definitely not the right place to look. While being conventional is not a 'must', using unconventional filming methods purely to disguise the fact that one cannot film a conventional one is in fact quite terrible.
To be fair, director Antonioni, a self proclaimed 'intellectual', did create one good film ( L'Avventura ), so it's not like this is a director that's completely worthless. However, even though said film did not follow a conventional narrative, it still had coherence, and managed to flow from scene to scene while still maintining immersion into the picture. L'eclisse does not have this 'flow', or this 'cohesion'. L'eclisse is essentially a 2 hour propaganda piece against capitalism. Antonioni doesn't shy away from creating half hour scenes consisting of only a bunch of people yelling like morons at a stock market. Of course, this scene does not tell us anything about any individual characters nor do they have any kind of storytelling. It is only there to show you how 'evil' capitalism is. While there are a lot of European films maintaining slight anti-capitalism sub text, Antonioni lacks the subtlety of superior films, and forces his viewpoints down the viewer's throat due to these excruciatingly long stock market scenes.
Of course, our two main characters played by Monica Vitti & Alain Delon ( The acting of them being one of the few good points in the film, along with excellent cinematography ), are also depicted as meaningless, devoid of life & in the case of the latter, completely materialistic. These characters do not resemble nor feel like real people. Instead, every character is made robotic in the most absurd and anti-capitalist way possible, to the point where this film ceases to be immersive, or compelling.
Of course, and this is especially present during the end of this picture, there is also a lot of pretentiousness in this propaganda piece. It seems to be desperate to make people feel like it has something to say, but in reality, there is no deeper meaning or sub text in this film, except for the obvious economic bias. I reckon everybody has the first-hand instinct of disliking this pretentious self-indulgent twaddle, and trust me, that is indeed the right one. It is a very typical example of an empty film masquerading as something more, and fooling thousands of people in the process.
All of this means that Antonioni has abandoned a search for perfection for a very subjective personal message. Since all messages are subjective, they are always lower on the priority list than the story or the characters themselves, thus making sure there is no reason to care about anything that happens in this picture.
To be fair, director Antonioni, a self proclaimed 'intellectual', did create one good film ( L'Avventura ), so it's not like this is a director that's completely worthless. However, even though said film did not follow a conventional narrative, it still had coherence, and managed to flow from scene to scene while still maintining immersion into the picture. L'eclisse does not have this 'flow', or this 'cohesion'. L'eclisse is essentially a 2 hour propaganda piece against capitalism. Antonioni doesn't shy away from creating half hour scenes consisting of only a bunch of people yelling like morons at a stock market. Of course, this scene does not tell us anything about any individual characters nor do they have any kind of storytelling. It is only there to show you how 'evil' capitalism is. While there are a lot of European films maintaining slight anti-capitalism sub text, Antonioni lacks the subtlety of superior films, and forces his viewpoints down the viewer's throat due to these excruciatingly long stock market scenes.
Of course, our two main characters played by Monica Vitti & Alain Delon ( The acting of them being one of the few good points in the film, along with excellent cinematography ), are also depicted as meaningless, devoid of life & in the case of the latter, completely materialistic. These characters do not resemble nor feel like real people. Instead, every character is made robotic in the most absurd and anti-capitalist way possible, to the point where this film ceases to be immersive, or compelling.
Of course, and this is especially present during the end of this picture, there is also a lot of pretentiousness in this propaganda piece. It seems to be desperate to make people feel like it has something to say, but in reality, there is no deeper meaning or sub text in this film, except for the obvious economic bias. I reckon everybody has the first-hand instinct of disliking this pretentious self-indulgent twaddle, and trust me, that is indeed the right one. It is a very typical example of an empty film masquerading as something more, and fooling thousands of people in the process.
All of this means that Antonioni has abandoned a search for perfection for a very subjective personal message. Since all messages are subjective, they are always lower on the priority list than the story or the characters themselves, thus making sure there is no reason to care about anything that happens in this picture.