Total Eclipse

A young Arthur Rimbaud arrives in Paris and forces his way into the life of the established poet Paul Verlaine, igniting a turbulent and destructive love affair that tears Verlaine away from his wife and bourgeois existence. The two men travel together through Europe, their relationship oscillating between creative inspiration and savage violence, until Verlaine shoots Rimbaud in a drunken rage and is imprisoned. The film traces Rimbaud's subsequent abandonment of poetry entirely, following his trajectory from celebrated literary rebel to obscure African trader, while Verlaine's later years pass in poverty and regret.