Cinema: Jan. 18, 1963

Eclipse. The trouble with modern man, says Michelangelo Antonioni in most of his movies (L'Avventura, La Notte), is that he has gained the whole world and lost his own soul; the trouble with this picture, though it is certainly an effort of supreme style, is that Antonioni in his obsessive pessimism ignores an important fact of human life: a deep shadow can be cast only by a strong light.

David and Lisa, shot for less than $200,000 by a man and his wife (Director Frank and Scenarist Eleanor Perry) who had never made a...