''Eclipse'' is a Canadian drama film, written and directed by

Jeremy Podeswa Jeremy Podeswa (born 1962) is a Canadian film and television director. He is best known for directing the films '' The Five Senses'' (1999) and ''Fugitive Pieces'' (2007). He has also worked as director on the television shows '' Six Feet Under ...

and released in 1994.

Gerald Pratley Gerald Arthur Pratley (September 3, 1923 – March 14, 2011) was a Canadian film critic and historian. Piers Handling"Gerald Arthur Pratley" ''The Canadian Encyclopedia'', September 18, 2011. A longtime film critic for the Canadian Broadcasting Cor ...

, ''A Century of Canadian Cinema''. Lynx Images, 2003. . p. 68. Set in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

during the two-week period leading up to a total eclipse of the sun, the film revolves around ten characters of varying sexual orientations whose urban lifestyles are marked by emotional and social disconnection from others. Against the backdrop of the media circus surrounding the rare celestial event, each of the ten characters struggles to connect with others through a chain of sexual encounters, with each new encounter involving one of the two partners from the previous one. The film also blends both black-and-white and colour cinematography, with the establishing scenes about the eclipse shot in colour and the sexual interactions filmed in black and white.Jay Stone, "Eclipse symbolism a pretentious bore". ''

Ottawa Citizen The ''Ottawa Citizen'' is an English-language daily newspaper owned by Postmedia Network in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. History Established as ''The Bytown Packet'' in 1845 by William Harris (journalist), William Harris, it was renamed the '' ...

'', April 21, 1995. The film premiered at the

1994 Toronto International Film Festival The 19th Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) took place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada between September 8 and September 17, 1994. '' Whale Music'' by Richard J. Lewis was selected as the opening film. The festival's name changed from ''Festiv ...

Plot summary

Cast

Critical response

Jay Stone of the

Southam Southam () is a market town and civil parish in the Stratford-on-Avon district of Warwickshire, England. Southam is situated on the River Stowe (called 'The Brook' by many locals), which flows from Napton-on-the-Hill and joins Warwickshire's R ...

newspaper chain wrote that "Jeremy Podeswa's ''Eclipse'' is the kind of film that gives pretentious, sophomoric symbolism the bad reputation it labors under these days. It's difficult to know how seriously to take this movie. It's either a study of the emptiness of the modern world and the banality of casual sex, or a

Second City TV ''Second City Television'', commonly shortened to ''SCTV'' and later known as ''SCTV Network'' and ''SCTV Channel'', is a Canadian television sketch comedy show that ran intermittently between 1976 and 1984. It was created as an offshoot from ...

parody of Canadian cinema." Rick Groen of ''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...

'' wrote that "the movie's success hinges on whether these essentially bleak interludes possess any dramatic conviction, whether the many psychological blackouts are as resonant as their astronomical equivalent. Some are. Aided by Podeswa's flair for elliptical dialogue, and buoyed by a strong ensemble cast (notably Pascale Montpetit as the maid and Matthew Ferguson as the teen), a few of the encounters strike allusive sparks, lighting up the welter of conflicting emotions that lurk just beneath the sexual act. But, like the copulators themselves, other scenes just lie there, prone and dull - we don't really know these people, we don't really care. And the pointed-to climax, when the narrative completes its prescribed circle and the sun does its disappearing number, is short on punctuating power - not weak, exactly, but less than emphatic." For the ''

Vancouver Sun The ''Vancouver Sun'', also known as the ''Sun'', is a daily broadsheet newspaper based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The newspaper is currently published by the Pacific Newspaper Group, a division of Postmedia Network. Published s ...

'', Lloyd Dykk wrote that "The even tempo to the scenes and a sound track of Indian ragas and wailing Moorish chants have a cool, hypnotic effect and the movie has a feeling of effortlessness. There is also considerable wit to the script and some clever visual punning, as when an image of the sun's blazing corona dissolves into the scorched holes that Sylvie burns into a napkin with her bored cigarette. But the strain of forcing together this chain of interactions does betray itself. The script seems to borrow the device of the brilliant Austrian

Arthur Schnitzler Arthur Schnitzler (15 May 1862 – 21 October 1931) was an Austrian author and dramatist. Biography Arthur Schnitzler was born at Praterstrasse 16, Leopoldstadt, Vienna, capital of the Austrian Empire (as of 1867, part of the dual monarchy ...

's 1891 play, ''

Anatol Anatol is a masculine given name, derived from the Greek name Ἀνατόλιος ''Anatolius'', meaning "sunrise". The Russian version of the name is Anatoly (also transliterated as Anatoliy and Anatoli). The French version is Anatole. A rarer v ...

'', whose chain of desultory pairings had the effect of atomic fission, adding up to a human meaning that was exponentially greater than its parts. In ''Eclipse'', you're too conscious of how schematically imposed the device is and Podeswa doesn't divert us with enough information about the characters' lives."

Awards and nominations

At the

16th Genie Awards The 16th Genie Awards were held on January 14, 1996, to honour films released in 1995."Two films divide Genie spoils". ''The Globe and Mail'', January 15, 1996. The ceremony took place in Montreal at Société Radio-Canada's Studio 42. For the fi ...

, Ferguson was nominated for Best Actor and Montpetit was nominated for Best Supporting Actress."Nominees for the 1995 Genie Awards".

Canadian Press The Canadian Press (CP; french: La Presse canadienne, ) is a Canadian national news agency headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. Established in 1917 as a vehicle for the time's Canadian newspapers to exchange news and information, The Canadian Pre ...

, November 7, 1995.

References

External links