Review LXXXVII - L'eclisse

Review LXXXVII
L'Eclisse (1962)

Guys, Alain Delon is, or was, a sexy man. After watching Le samouraï, my boyfriend and I made sure to check out all the Jean-Pierre Melville and Alain Delon films. The two together were like peas in a pod, just like the wonderful John Carpenter and Kurt Russell films released in the eighties. However, it was Alain Delon's lovely eyes that caught the viewer's attention, so when I found out about Michelangelo Antonioni's L'eclisse, starring yours truly and the beautiful Monica Vitti in a love story, well, I pounced.

Vittoria (Vitti) breaks off with her lover one sunny day and, after visiting her mother at the stock market, meets up with a young, handsome man, Piero (Delon). However, their relationship may be more strenuous than either anticipated.

This film was... long and drawn out. I was very disappointed. The opening scene, while brilliantly shot, was so long. We meet Alain Delon's character at the stock market, but I think we finally saw Vittoria and Piero engage in something maybe two-thirds of the way into the film. The film is over two hours. So yeah, I didn't get any Alain Delon booty or nothin'. Sourly disappointed. However, if you don't go into L'eclisse expecting a very focused plot, you'll enjoy the beautiful shots. I've never seen another Michelangelo Antonioni film, so it is possible his films are primarily artistically appealing shots with a lot of meaning and not so much for the regular folk. However, I did read that he didn't particularly like the ending he chose, which I found was quite out of place. Either way, had I gone into the film without expecting a relatively normal romance, I might not have been as disappointed. But seriously, the woman would show affection, then walk away. I don't even know how Alain Delon kept going.

L'eclisse is a look into my relationships, or that is my guess. We see a lack of complete devotion to the other, and in the end, sorry for spoilers, the two never meet up again even though they both offer promises of seeing each other soon. Apparently this is the final film of a triology specifically about modern age getting in the way of life. The stock market gets in the way of Vittoria and her mother, and maybe Vittoria goes for Piero because of his position in the stock market, revealing that their doomed affair. It does this well, but damn man, the film can still feel extraordinarily long sometimes. Yes, yes, beautiful shots, but sometimes I'm not Koyaanisqatsi patient, especially when I expected Alain Delon, sniffle.

The film takes a relatively good perspective on contemporary living and its downfalls, though it can be long. Also, this film doesn't have a lot of Alain Delon in it, so don't go in expecting him. Otherwise, you'll be very sad indeed.

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Review LXXXVI - Come and See

Review LXXXVI
Come and See (Иди и смотри) (1985)

I mentioned this film in my last review and, surprisingly, I actually watched it. Come and See, known in Russian as Иди и смотри and in Belarusian as Ідзі і глядзi, directed by Elem Klimov, is notorious for being absolutely heartwrenching and melancholic. In fact, this was the director's last film as he felt he had done all he could artistically after that film. The film stars Aleksei Kravchenko as our protagonist.

The movie begins with an old man yelling at two children to stop digging for rifles in Nazi-occupied Byelorussian SSR. One of the boys, Florya Gaishun (Kravchenko), manages to find an abandoned rifle, allowing him to join the resistance - Soviet partisan forces. He is excited and all ready to leave, even as he is dragged out of his house against his mother's wishes. Soon, however, Florya will be shown the realities of World War II and his innocence and naiveté will be lost forever.

So what did I think about Come and See? Well, one, I'll say that, for a Russian film, it was not too lengthy and slow. If you've ever seen a Russian film or read a Russian book, you know what I'm talking about. This film is not bordering four hours, and sometimes I felt scenes were unnecessarily long, but the film wasn't unbearable. However, it terms of content, well, that's a different story. Come and See's characters were not really likeable, but damn, did that ending just destroy you. I mean, as I always say, it's hard for me to relate and I have been desensitised to such viewings, but the final portraits are hard-hitting. The content itself is depressing and scary. However, I'd have to say that the film as a whole can be hard to digest because of the long shots where nothing really happens. Apparently the artillery is also not realistic (tracer rounds shot five hundred times at one point), but I have no knowledge of that, so I can't really talk about it. But again, you have that hard-hitting ending. And I will admit, the portraits throughout are grand. You get pictures of people's faces and they're well shot. But I can't say this film really met every standard I thought it would have. It's depressing, yes, but I couldn't care for the characters at all. In this way, it really lost a lot of the closeness I expected from it. You see a child forced to grow up and faced with such psychological torture, but if you don't care for the child, you lose a lot out of the film.

I find you would watch this film more for the ending and to say that yes, you did watch Come and See, but as an overall film, it is not that stupendous, minus the brilliant portraits. Now I'm off to enjoy the rest of my last day off for summer 2014. Take care, guys.

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