Total Eclipse

True enough, it escapes from the norm and enters a world that tries to dazzle unlike any other. The characters are at times deplorable, spiteful, malignant, loathsome. But this is who these people were. Screenwriter Christopher Hampton is a scholar on Arthur Rimbaud, it's not as if DiCaprio harnessed himself as a wild, erratic creature of pompous disregard for on reason. It's part of the film's heartbreak, it's what makes Leo's performance virtuoso. He is charismatic, and brilliantly seductive - a feet Leonardo pulls off with absolute iridescence. If you caught on to this, rather than critiquing with pessimistic aim you would have cared for his lead anyway. I sure did.

Total Eclipse could never be labeled as a top prize in a book of superior film. Unfortunately, for the callous, naive, stupid public (which is most of the filmgoing society), asking a viewer to analyze a film is asking them to kiss the sun. Eclipse pulls of brilliance in some of the most subtle ways imaginable. Verlaine's singing of his wifes' hair the symbolic fire that attacks his heart and desire for Rimbaud. Arthur's stabbing of Paul's hand our first clue to Rimbaud's inner pain that he's hidden so well. Paul's/Arthur's affair proof to the world that vulnerability can overpower our entire existence - that loving who we're supposed to love isn't always possible (in this case, women). It's raw, naked for you to look at, the themes don't smack you in the face, you have to look for them. I believe that Total Eclipse is extraordinary proof that film viewers have lost their capacity to believe in anything that's apart from their own morals.

The film has sodomistic themes - to some people that gives them merit to criticize the movie as a failure. It doesn't follow the normal legacy of conformity that most movies have set out - routine, chronological feelings that we all know and understand - but does that mean the movie is bad because of it? Total Eclipse has flaws, but it has greatness. I stand almost alone telling you all this, but much like Arthur's poems - it seeks to change the atmosphere of how certain things are made. And like Arthur again - it is very misunderstood. I applaud Leo for seeing this and taking on the role of marvelous confusion. Total Eclipse is an absolutely miraculous film, and effective to the soul.
Justin Cowan