Total Eclipse

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Total Eclipse ★ 1995 (R)

Unfortunate look at the mutually destructive relationship between 19thcentury French poets Arthur Rimbaud (DiCaprio) and Paul Verlaine (Thewlis). Rimbaud was a 16-year-old Parisian sensation for his iconoclastic work but what's presented is an obnoxious showoff, while the older, married Verlaine is a drunken lout who abuses his teenaged wife Mathilde (Bohringer). There's lots of dissolute, violent behavior and absolutely no insight into their work (which is the only reason to care). Ugly film wastes a lot of talent. 111m/C VHS, DVD . Leonardo DiCaprio, David Thewlis, Romane Bohringer, Dominique Blanc; D: Agnieszka Holland; W: Christopher Hampton; C: Yorgos Arvanitis; M: Jan A.P. Kaczmarek.