(1962, b/w; Eclipse, Italian) Final film of director Michelangelo Antonioni's so-called "Incommunicability Trilogy," beginning with L'avventura and following La notte, co-written with Tonino Guerra, Elio Bartolini, Ottero Ottieri.

A pictorial essay of angst, of incompleteness, of endings (from individual relationships to all of humanity) into silence - as if Antonioni were attempting to freeze his motion picture (repeating scenes) into stasis, a distilled, single, stilled image - begins with the falsely cordial breakup between Vittoria (Monica Vitti), a translator of articles, and her fiancé/employer Riccardo (Francisco Rabal).

Vittoria goes to the stock exchange to find her mother (Lilla Brignone) where she meets shrewd, handsome Piero (Alain Delon), a trader. For a minute the seeming pandemonium - the mob of men shouting and gesturing madly appears incomprehensible to outsiders - comes to a halt for brief tribute to the death of a colleague before the frantic buying and selling resumes.

With her neighbor Anita, Vittoria visits Marta, whose husband has remained on their ranch in Kenya. In the flat, decorated with memorabilia from African, Vittoria dances with a spear to tribal music on the phonograph until Marta says, among other racist remarks: "Let's stop playing Negroes."

In a small plane on a pleasant flight through the clouds, Vittoria accompanies Anita, Anita's husband, and the pilot to Verona; in contrast on the ground Vittoria notices the contrails of military jets overhead.

Fearful of poverty, Vittoria's mother screams "Thieves! Scoundrels! Profiteers!" as the market (the central metaphor) crashes, costing her millions of lira. To Vittoria (caring neither about poverty nor wealth) Piero points out his boss, a fat man, who just lost ten million with a shrug; she asks: "Where does the money go?"

After spending the day chasing after clients to pay up, then dumping his date for dying her blonde hair dark, Piero pursues blonde Vittoria to her apartment (not permitted inside) when a drunk steals his car and drives it into the drink where he drowns.

Alone with Piero (who has replaced his damaged sporty car with a new BMW) in his parents' home, Vittoria says that people about to fall in love shouldn't ask too many questions. She disappoints him with her disinterest in marriage. Where does all the love go? The streets are desert as if the population had been obliterated.

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