While the film focuses on the intense relationship between poets Rimbaud and Verlaine, the emphasis is firmly on their personalities and destructive artistic aspirations, rather than reducing them solely to their sexuality. The story isn’t re-engineered purely for representation points, but some viewers may see the heavy focus on their taboo romance as a calculated draw for modern sensibilities.

Total Eclipse does not exactly hold up traditional values, as it depicts unconventional romance and undermines cultural norms of family, religion, and masculinity for its time period. Still, it does not openly mock these foundations so much as it opts to transgress them via the artists’ real, chaotic lives.

Although the film highlights the bohemian rejection of tradition, it doesn’t totally villainize traditional perspectives. The society around Rimbaud and Verlaine is portrayed as stifling, but their flaws are on full display. There isn’t true ideological diversity, but the narrative is more preoccupied with personal destruction than outright moralizing.