[The Eclipse] begins, as L'Avventura and La Notte ended, at dawn. Outside the window a water-tower looms like some futuristic mushroom; inside, a man sits rigid in a chair, inertia containing anger, while a girl restlessly circles the room. The affair is over; they have talked themselves to a standstill; and this time neither can pick up the shattered pieces. It is, unmistakably and in every detail, an Antonioni sequence…. Intellectually, one is aware of what Antonioni is doing and why he has chosen to do it in this dehumanising way. But at the same time, in its deliberate echoing of the more sombre moods of La Notte, the scene pushes style towards the thin edge of mannerism….

Far from being a return journey over ground already covered, it takes Antonioni out into new areas, covers a wider range than perhaps any of his films since Le Amiche...