1. The film uses a lot of slow shots, and the characters are almost still in the picture. Therefore, director Antonioni used the element of wind, combining movement and stillness, to show the inner emotions of the characters. Even an electric fan is placed in a windless room.
2. The composition in black and white is beautiful. Impressed are the silhouette of the heroine in the middle of the two doors, the wind instruments composed of flagpoles, the crowd of securities traders trading in front of the round table, the jets flying along the diagonal of the screen, the aerial photography of Rome...
3. Lots of interesting and poetic shots. The Kenyan dance performed by the heroine, the Shih Tzu dog walking upright, the music played by the flagpole, the heroine's friend shooting balloons with a shotgun...
4. The name of the film is "Eclipse". In the film's physical sense, it is the erosion of objects by running water, and in a deeper sense, it is the erosion of human souls in modern society.
There is a clear era background in the film. At the end of the colonial era, Kenya is carrying out a national independence movement. There was a brief peace in the world due to the nuclear threat from the great powers. There are hints in the dialogue of the heroine's friend and the newspaper at the end of the film. The world thus entered the post-war stage of development, that is, into the modern society.
In this context, with the rapid development of economy and the emergence of a new economic form of stock and securities trading, people are flocking to it like crazy. We see the heroine go to her mother, who is so focused on the stock market that she has no time for her. After getting along for a few minutes, I said goodbye to her and rejoined the stock battle. An exchange employee dies and everyone observes a minute's silence. At this time, someone jumped out and said that this minute will save millions of dollars. In modern society, only money is left in people's eyes, family affection has become estranged, and life has become indifferent. Finally, the stock market crash occurred, countless investments turned into bubbles, and countless investors, including the heroine's mother, went bankrupt. In the state of being intoxicated with money in modern society, people's desires are infinitely magnified, and eventually even themselves are swallowed up by the whirlpool of desires.
Stocks have become a symbol of modern society in the film. The heroine does not play stocks, which shows that she is a traditional woman. As an employee of the stock exchange, the male protagonist is naturally a male in modern society. So we can see that there are many contradictions between the heroine and the hero: the heroine is close to nature, and at a friend's house she is interested in the scenery in the painting; she likes traditional culture, dances Kenyan dances, stops to watch statues, and appreciates the classical paintings of the hero's house Painting; good at discovering poetry and fun in life, laughing when you see a dog walking upright, listening to the music played by the flagpole, letting friends break balloons with shotguns. The male protagonist is obsessed with work, and the phone is constantly busy with various businesses; pragmatism, deceiving shareholders for the benefit of the company, and covering up the government's manipulation of the stock market.
These contradictions are embodied in several plots in the film: the male protagonist's car was driven into the river by an alcoholic, and the alcoholic drowned on the spot. The male protagonist only cares about the car, and the female protagonist reminds him: Are you worried about the car? The male protagonist continued to talk about the situation of the car, but did not hear the female protagonist's voice. He doesn't care about the death of an alcoholic at all, and his heart has been eroded by modern society like everyone else, and he has become indifferent to life. When the heroine called the hero, maybe before she thought about what to say, the hero yelled at the phone impatiently.
But the biggest contradiction between the male and female protagonists is the alienation of the love relationship. Director Antonioni used ingenious camera language to express this relationship: every time the hero and heroine get along, there will be various things such as floors, doors, and curtains. As a man in modern society, the male protagonist is very direct and efficient in his pursuit. The first time the female protagonist was lying on her childhood bed at home, the male protagonist rushed up and wanted to have sex with her, but was rejected by the female protagonist. In the male lead's house, I desperately wanted to know the female lead, but the topic was diverted by the female lead. Asking the heroine directly on the grass if she can marry him, the heroine can only answer that she doesn't know. The heroine's point of view is still traditional. Two people slowly fall in love with each other, and they don't need to understand each other at all. In the end, everything will come naturally, so she didn't think about these things at all. She said to the male protagonist: I wish I didn't love you, or could love you more. She really loves the male protagonist, but she can't go further, because of the contradiction between the two people, the two people's lifestyles, thinking logic and even values are very different. So two people can only use sex to maintain this relationship.
The male protagonist represents the modern society's view of love: straight to the subject, not pursuing subtlety and romance. Director Antonioni expresses his anxiety and incomprehension about the developing modern society through the situation of the heroine.
The end is a 7-minute montage of empty footage without the protagonist leaving the country, made up of some scenes and characters that have appeared before. The gurgling water, the wind blowing the trees, and the jet of the plane are the poetic pictures in life, but the people at the end are rushing for life, and the expressions on their faces are hurried and anxious, ignoring these poetry in life. Director Antonioni told us at the end of the film history with this name: In modern society, not only the male protagonist and the female protagonist's mother, but all these ordinary people's hearts have been eroded and turned a blind eye to the beauty in life.
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