L'Eclisse

Paris Belongs to Us defies genre and defies even the loose standards of the New Wave. It does, however, undeniably represent the cinema of Jacques Rivette.

If the basic love story of ‘Hiroshima mon amour’ comes across as less than unique—a brief encounter between doomed lovers—Resnais’ presentation amplifies the romance to make it something special.

It is with L’Avventura that one truly gets the sense of ground being broken. That’s not to say it is the best film [Antonioni] ever directed (though I would argue it is), but this is the film of his that most clearly worked to usher in a new form of cinema, from which there was no turning back.

“L’eclisse” is the third film in Michelangelo Antonioni’s so-called “Trilogy of Alienation,” the preceding works having been “L’avventura” and “La notte.” While the three films taken together do explore many of the same themes relating to spiritual emptiness, the disbanding of relationships, and a struggle to communicate in an increasingly modern and alienating world, “L’eclisse” differs from the two earlier works most notably in its increasingly experimental style and its blatant departures from conventional storytelling and stylistic design.