 | Starring: Emmanuelle Beart, Jerzy Radziwilowicz, Anne Brochet Director: Jacques Rivette Format: Anamorphic PAL Widescreen Released: 28 Feb 2005 RRP: Average Rating:  |
We learn nothing of Marie, but we slowly discover Julien. He is a clock repairer - old clocks, big clocks. His hands - butcher's hands - are always dirty, his house is dominated by clutter & chaos. Yet he strives to make things run like clockwork. He also dabbles in blackmail - we are left wondering about his darker side, wondering how it is that he can manipulate his victim so blatantly.
But Julien invites Marie into his idiosyncratic world. It's a bachelor world - he's shared it with at least one woman before, but the only influence she's had on him is negligible ... & now forgotten. Some of her clothes remain in a wardrobe, some of her cosmetics are in a bathroom cabinet: her existence is shut away behind closed doors, archived in Julien's past.
Marie sets about the transformation of a spare room, imposing her identity on it & signifying her entry into his world. She empties the wardrobe & bathroom cabinet of evidence of Julien's earlier relationship & quickly establishes herself as his accomplice in the blackmail sideline.
But she remains a mystery figure, elusive, a young woman prone to dissolving into a trancelike state - capable even of walking out & abandoning him when the mood seizes her. She rapidly becomes the centre of his life, but we are never certain whether he remains peripheral to hers ... or precisely what it is she wants from him. The mystery graduallly deepens.
Jacques Rivette directs this film with astonishing magnanimity. His presence is almost anonymous as Emmanuelle Béart & Jerzy Radziwilowicz are alllowed to dominate the screen & stamp their personalities on the narrative. The film, however, is typical Rivette - slow moving, lyricallly erotic, embracing naturalistic sounds & effects, yet with tantalising use of fantasy & enigma.
It's a long film - nearly two & a half hours. Its long, lyrical silences are fascinating enough, but you wonder if it could not have been cut by thirty minutes without losing anything. However, despite its urban setting, it is a film which creates an almost pastoral sense of tranquillity: indeed, this sense of tranquillity, this sense of any lack of urgency heightens the amorality of Julien's blackmail, & makes the tensions in his relationship with Marie so much more human. He's a tolerant man, a patient man, a man who understands the measure of time, a man who is not in any hurry. But time, we will discover, is of the essence of the story.
Delightful, relaxing film with a couple of entertaining extras served up on the DVD. There is an enjoyable interview with Emmanuelle Béart, & an intriguing one with Rivette - who seems quite intolerant & dismissive of the interviewer at times, & who appears to view the need to provide 'extras' as an insult to his art & invasion of his time.
Rivette is noted (some detractors might say notorious) for his slow pacing & low-key style, & this film is no exception (it runs almost 2 & a half hours). So whether you will like this film depends very much on whether you like that approach; speaking for myself I like this film very much because Rivette gives you time to absorb the atmosphere & get to know the characters. But if you saw (and disliked) some of the director's earlier available works (such as La Belle Noiseuse & Va Savoir) then rest assured you probably won't like this one much either.
One problem with reviewing this film is that it's reallly better to see it without foreknowledge of the story, as much of the impact is lessened if you know what is coming. Suffice to say that not everything is as it seems (the film starts out with a fairly mundane blackmail plot), & that Rivette conjurs a disturbing ambience that graduallly & almost imperceptibly creeps into the film. Both lead actors (Emmanuelle Beart & Jerzy Radziwilowicz) are superb as they carry the film for 90% of its running time (there are a couple of other characters who are key to the plot but make only fleeting appearances).
The DVD presentation by Artificial Eye is good, with the film presented in its correct aspect ratio & a couple of interesting supplements featuring interviews with Rivette & Emmanuelle Beart (these do reveal significant plot points so are probably best seen after the film).
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