Conti plays twin brothers, one of whom is suspected of the other’s murder, in this dreamy but frustrating fable

Simon Perry’s elusive, lugubrious, faintly bizarre psychodrama from 1977, based on a novel of the same name by author and travel writer Nicholas Wollaston is now re-released; it is a dreamily directionless movie which resists, or almost resists, categorisation. It seems as if it is going to be a thriller or supernatural mystery, and you can wait almost until the final credits for some final narrative flourish or definitive plot shock that would prove what it’s all been about. And in fact there is a revelation, but it is presented so coolly that you will be expecting something else to come afterwards. An unsympathetic producer might well want to cut this film by two-thirds and present it as an episode of Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected, but that would be to lose the flavour and perhaps the meaning. I’m still not sure what I think about Eclipse, but it’s certainly distinctive.

Tom Conti plays Tom, a thoughtful, gentle man whose sailing expedition off the Scottish coast with his twin brother Geoffrey (played by Conti with a Peter Wyngarde moustache) has ended in a tragic drowning. As he explains to the inquest, in the darkness caused by an eclipse, he lost control of the craft and his brother accidentally fell overboard, hitting his head which explains the corpse’s grisly wound. Some time later, Tom visits Geoffrey’s beautiful widow Cleo (played by Gay Hamilton, from Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon), with whom he is clearly in love, and her young son Giles who adores his good-natured uncle.

This tricksy novel from the author of A Separation takes its cue from Rachel Cusk’s Outline trilogy – but what starts as intrigue soon starts to feel like time-wasting

Katie Kitamura’s most recent books, A Separation (2017) and Intimacies (2021) – each narrated by an unnamed woman upping sticks for Europe in the wake of emotional upheaval – were among several American novels to take inspiration from the coolly analytical style of Rachel Cusk’s Outline trilogy . Kitamura’s new novel, Audition , centred on marital strife between an actor and an art critic in New York, likewise deploys that Outline -patented register of philosophical meditation, this time to unsettling and even unfathomable purpose – which is another way of saying I just didn’t get it.

Mystery reigns from the start. We’ve got another unnamed narrator, who visits a restaurant to meet Xavier, 25, nearly half her age. The meeting is “something I had not chosen to share with Tomas”, her husband, “although I didn’t know why”, a caveat that sounds the keynote for a coy guessing game. “I want you to know that I accept what you told me,” Xavier tells her; we have no idea what he means, but it’s only page 8, and we’re enjoying the tension. When the narrator tells him: “I don’t think we should see each other again… No relationship between us can be possible,” it’s a feint that wrongfoots us for the moment when – still only 40 pages in, no spoiler – we’re told this isn’t about sex: the “conflict in the air between us… read as carnal interest [but] the actual story, the reality of what was happening between us in that moment, was much less easily imagined”.

Wera Hobhouse says her apparent presence on secret list of critics of country’s human rights record made her a target

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A Liberal Democrat MP refused entry to Hong Kong to see her young grandson has said her experience should be “a wake-up call for any parliamentarian”, given that it seems to show China holds a secret list of banned politicians.

Wera Hobhouse, who was turned back by officials on Thursday, said she was given no explanation as to why this happened, and could only assume that it was because she had spoken out about rights abuses by China.

James Murray insists supplies are in the country to keep furnaces going

Our First Edition newsletter today also has its focus on the crisis at British Steel. Here is my colleague Nimo Omer outlining where we are:

The business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds now holds emergency powers that enable him to compel the company to buy the raw materials it needs, with the government covering the running costs, which Jingye estimates at approximately £700,000 per day in losses.

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My prospective buyers’ lenders view the property as risky because the expert who certified it stands accused of malpractice

I am trapped in a shared-ownership flat, which is proving ­impossible to sell because the fire safety engineer who surveyed the block is accused of forging fire safety certificates required by mortgage lenders. I own 45% of my home and pay rent on the remaining 55% to Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (MTVH). The building has a valid fire risk certificate signed by Adam Kiziak of Tri Fire, but because he was later suspended pending investigation , lenders of prospective buyers view my flat as risky. MTVH is unable to give a timeline of when this will all be sorted out, yet is happy to raise rents while I am stuck . Moreover, it waited three months to inform us, during which time my flat was pointlessly on sale. This is my first home, but it’s beginning to seem like a prison.

ZV, Stevenage

EU foreign ministers meet in Luxembourg after Russian attack kills at least 34 in Sumy

EU foreign ministers are meeting in Luxembourg this morning to discuss the key challenges facing the bloc in foreign affairs, with Ukraine top of the pile.

Reeling from the shock of Russia’s Palm Sunday’s attack on Sumy, which killed at least 34 and injured more than 100, the leaders will discuss what more they can do to help Ukraine deter Russian aggression.

Chinese exports jump as official says ‘the sky won’t fall,’ despite warning from US officials that smartphone and laptop exemption from import tariffs on China will be short-lived

European shares have bounced at the open, with the mainland indices rising by more than 2%.

In London, the FTSE 100 index jumped by 130 points, or 1.6%, to 8,090.

The two sides should strengthen cooperation in production and supply chains.

Maurizio Cattelan, the great Italian conceptual prankster who framed a banana and plumbed in a precious loo, explains why he’s now blasting huge holes into sheets of gold

‘For a long time,” says Maurizio Cattelan, “I wanted to do something with gunshots. It was my obsession.” His original idea, back in the 90s, was to have a shooter fire rounds at him as he stood behind bulletproof glass. This was to take place in front of an audience. “The idea was there,” he says. “But it was insane.”

We should not be too surprised. The controversial Italian conceptualist has made headlines in recent years by taping a banana to a wall (and selling it for a fortune ), smashing a meteor into the pope (or his likeness), and plumbing a gold toilet into Oxfordshire’s Blenheim Palace ( which was then nicked ). All in the name of high art satire. Cattelan’s work is direct, confrontational, obvious and brutally in your face. And now, in a small show at Gagosian in Mayfair, he has revisited that 90s notion – and blasted huge holes into sheets of gold with a pump-action shotgun.

Anecdotal evidence suggests a rise in requests to take books off shelves, particularly LGBTQ+ titles

Requests to remove books from library shelves are on the rise in the UK, as the influence of pressure groups behind book bans in the US crosses the Atlantic, according to those working in the sector.

Although “the situation here is nowhere [near] as bad, censorship does happen and there are some deeply worrying examples of library professionals losing their jobs and being trolled online for standing up for intellectual freedom on behalf of their users”, said Louis Coiffait-Gunn, CEO of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (Cilip).