The thing is, my first intention of watching this movie was to see young DiCaprio for he was my childhood crush. But because it was so difficult to get at the time, then I started to look up about Arthur Rimbaud to know if aside young DiCaprio, it will be interesting to watch. Then boom! I fell madly in love with Rimbaud. He was a very interesting figure to me. He started out as a shy boy who was obedient to every thing his mother told him and ended up as rebel kid who changed the face of literature forever--one of the founding fathers of modern poetry--one of the literary heroes. I forgot my intention to watch young DiCaprio; I watched it to see how Rimbaud's incredible life being portrayed in a movie. I expected this movie to make me drown in tears (I'm very crier when it comes to movies) but no. Instead I was disappointed. Here Rimbaud was portrayed as a stupid brat who can't do better but pissing on another poet from a great height. Total Eclipse is neither a biographical nor art movie. It's a gay movie pretending to be art movie by hiding under the armpits of two brilliant poets. Not that I have problem with gays, but watching this movie will make us wonder why Rimbaud and Verlaine are so important that Hollywood bothers to make a movie about them. Rimbaud and Verlaine before anything else are two of greatest poets in history, but there is no evidence about it here. Here they exaggerate both poets' obnoxiousness. Not even a bit of their genius was shown. There is a funny scene where Rimbaud and Verlaine were in a poet meeting and a poet was "interested" in Rimbaud's poetry but Verlaine butted in and say, "he doesn't like discussing his poetry". Well, the real Rimbaud would be more than happy to discuss his poetry. I wonder if the scriptwriter(s) were too smart to picture about how Rimbaud discussing his poetry with prominent poets in a poet meeting. Another scene: when Rimbaud first arrived in Maute de Fleurville's house, he was very rude and arrogant. In reality, Rimbaud was very shy and nervous that he didn't say a word during dinner until Verlaine "saved" him by taking him into his room. Also, where did the filmmaker(s) get the "fact" that Rimbaud encouraging Verlaine to shoot him by swaying his hand in the air like an asshole? There are still other inaccurate scenes but I chose not to talk about it further. It made me laugh to read there is someone here who wrote that after watching this movie he refused to read anything from Rimbaud anymore. Lol, I doubt he even read Rimbaud. There is also someone who wrote that with the kind of behavior that she saw in this movie, Rimbaud deserves to be forgotten. Judging someone so legendary based on a movie that didn't even receive good reviews shows how shallow you are as a person. If you can't judge a book by its movie, you can't judge a public figure by its movie either. Better read his biography. From Graham Robb I will suggest the most. Of course it's a very long biography for people who dislike reading and prefer to judge a literary hero by a silly movie who was banned from the theaters not even a week after its release. But for those who don't mind reading hundreds pages of book, this biography by Graham Robb will help you to know why Rimbaud is so important. Anyways, Rimbaud and Verlaine created one of the greatest love stories. Total Eclipse actually has some good scenes regarding this affair, the problem is when I watch this movie from the start to ending I will be nothing but annoyed. Those scenes can be good only if I watch them alone, you know, without having to watch the movie in a whole. Why I didn't rate it lower? The answer is somehow I still owe this movie because I discovered Rimbaud for the first time from it. And I appreciate both DiCaprio's and Thewlis performance for Rimbaud and Verlaine are very difficult role to play.
Review of Total Eclipse
