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Rating:  - Eh.
This movie wasn't great, wasn't bad, it was barely good.
Knowing a little about the poet Arthur Rimbaud I wanted an insight into his life. The way he was portrayed was less than wonderful.
Leonardo played him as a whiny, selfish immature little boy. Little of his genius was shown. I realize that Arthur was young but he also had a mind mature enough to create such wonderful work. To me this movie should have been about his work first, it wasn't, his gay lovelife was.
While that is a big part of who he was I could have done with less of their relationship and more of the work of both he and Paul Verlaine.
Paul Verlaine came across as a complete nut case. I honestly couldn't see what either found so attractive about the other. And since this was made to be more of a love story you'd think that they would have worked a little harder on the chemistry.
This movie wasn't bad enough to turn off, but not good enough to buy or watch again.
I was hoping for a little more depth.
Rating:  - Total Eclipse
It was a good film for Leonardo before having acted as Jack in a high budget film as Titanic. The story is classic based on the true story of a reputed french author. Leonardo can express his own sentiment and emotion in his role. If you are Leonardo's Fan, don't miss this film. Total Eclipse is a remarkable and unforgettable. Leonardo's charm and youth are always energy for you to remind him.
Rating:  - Bio-pic of Rimbaud proves not too "illuminating"
Arthur Rimbaud, the nineteenth-century poet, prodigy, and mystic who composed almost all his writings before the age of eighteen, and whose literary and aesthetic doctrine that a poet must degrade and sublimate his personality in order to become ''a visionary'', or one who can percieve the infinite and speak with the voice of a God, was crucial in shaping the development of literature in the twentieth century, was truly an ingenious writer, and person.
The same cannot, unfortunately, be said for the screenwriter and director of "Total Eclipse", who have taken the biography of this unique, fascinating individual and transformed it into a nineteenth century "Jerry Springer" of sorts. The movie is, admittedly, historically accurate, at least in most respects. That is not it's primary fault. But it suffers from a number of significant shortcomings in other areas which make it not simply a dissapointingly mediocre, annoying film, but an insult to admirers of Rimbaud as well.
One of the main problems of "Total Eclipse" is it's star. Not neccessarily his acting,in this case: but simply his presence. Leonardo DiCaprio is simply too familiar a face, and his portrayal of the young Rimbaud as nothing less than a hateful, boorish, monster is beyond offensive. Not to deny that Rimbaud was without shortcomings: indeed, he is known as much for his poetry as for his strange and explosive personality. Yet the movie's excessively negative portrayal of the poet would be more tolerable if it provided any insight into his poetry, which it unforgivably fails to do. Throughout the movie, Rimbaud's writing is reduced to a mere footnote: we are assured numerous times of his genius, yet are not even informed of the titles of his most significant works, namely, "Le Bateau Ivre (The Drunken Boat) ''Illuminations'', and "Un Saison En Enfer" (A Season in Hell)." No. What we get instead, as in most big-budget Hollywood productions, is a sensationalized biography in which the truly important aspects of Rimbaud's life are, as the film's title would suggest, totally eclipsed, by incidents (specifically, the alleged homosexual love affair between Rimbaud and the older poet Paul Verlaine, which, though not without importance, occupies the entire focus of the film) which would appear, today, in a supermarket tabloid.
''Total Eclipse'' feels, throughout, like a lazy, slapdash effort, starting with a few half-hearted attempts to ennumerate Rimbaud's philosophy and culminating as a series of petty, melodramatic squabbles between the central characters. And yet, just like a middle-brow soap opera, or an episode of "Jerry Springer", the movie is sometimes guiltily compelling, such as when Rimbaud decries another poet's work and creates havoc by urinating on his writing (another example of an event shamelessly exaggerated in order to appeal to John Q. Public). Rimbaud may indeed have been an anti-social jerk at times, and the film-makers deserve a small amount of credit for tackling this important but cinematically neglected subject; but any reader of his poetry and letters will discover a far more rational and sympathetic Rimbaud than the one portrayed in this dismal, over-simplfied "biography". As Dicaprio's Rimbaud himself might say, "Pitiful."
Rating:  - Warning: Don't watch without a barf bag
A team of movie producers must have come together and said to each other, "Instead of making a movie that is actually entertaining, why don't we see how many ways can we find to disgust, bore, and depress the viewers?"
Rating:  - TOUCHING GAY MOVIE!!!!!!
Total Eclipse is a touching gay movie that hits your heart and has great acting in it!!!!!!! Leonardo Dicarpo plays a free spirit artist that runs into another guy and starts up a relationship!!!!! The movie is a very love filled setting and i think that the two guys made the film!!!!! You need to watch this movie,because it will touch your heart with love and its just a great gay flick to see!!!!!!!
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