L’Eclisse review: a classic of its time, but perhaps not for all time

Even the most ardent admirers of Michelangelo Antonioni will freely admit that the director's work has not aged well. The director's once greatly admired trilogy – comprising L'avventura (1960), La Notte (1961) and L'Eclisse (1962) – no longer features prominently on critics' lists or among film-makers' listed influences.

Partly, this is because the films are so rooted in 1960s post-war malaise that they cannot truly exist outside of it. There is, too, a chilliness about the work. The characters that populate the Antonioni trilogy endure cold marriages, doomed love affairs and far too much time on their hands. They embody First World Problems long before that phrase entered common parlance.

L'Eclisse opens with a romantic break-up and ends with another romantic break-up. Between these world-weary bookends, the film's jaded heroine Vittoria (Monica Vitti) hooks up with stockbroker Piero (Alain Delon). Unsurprisingly, their relationship is defined by material things, including access to private planes and fast cars. When a drunken joyrider is killed in Piero's Alfa Romeo Giulietta, he is so concerned with the damage (and not the unfortunate passenger) that he replaces it with a BMW.

Vittoria’s privilege is never more amplified than during an early (and unfortunate) scene wherein she blacks up and impersonates a “negro” at the apartment of Marta, a friend who grew up in colonial Africa. “Six million negroes want to throw out 60,000 whites,” explains the breathtakingly racist Marta, across her many exotic animal hides. “Luckily, they are still in their trees and have barely lost their tails.”

Antonioni's meditation on love in an age of rampant consumerism ought to have retained its clout. But in common with the black-up scene, there are many parts of L'Eclisse – mostly relating to unalloyed privilege – that no longer scan for modern audiences. Against this, there is intellectual rigour, cinematographer Gianni Di Venanzo's discombobulating use of angles and aspect and that superb no-show last scene.