This is very short for a Rivette film, and its delineation of his themes is correspondingly clear, simple, skeletal -- suited to the simplicity of the little dying circus, whose director has himself recently died, and whose remaining members say this is its last tour. Castellitto's character encounters Birkin's on the road when the vehicle she's driving, which pulls the circus tent, has broken down. He arrives in a shiny German sports car like the deus ex machina that he is -- the present equivalent of Cocteau's motorcycles.
An essay by the French critic Hélène Frappat relates this to other Rivette films and analyzes its themes. This can be found on the Groupement Général des Cinémas de Recherche website and there is also a translation of the essay into English online. This provides a skeleton key to the skeleton key, so to speak.
Ms. Frappat doesn't mention it, but Vittorio (Castellitto) falls in love with Kate (Birkin) from then on, and yet, after lingering around the circus for a week or two, he is called on to business in Spain, and leaves her. By participating in a reenactment of the dangerous whip trick that had accidentally killed the most important person in her life 15 years earlier, Kate is purged of the lingering sorrow and guilt she has been feeling. She may not presumably return to her Paris occupation of dyeing cloth for designers. I tend to agree with 'Variety' reviewer Boyd Van Hoeij, that Jane Birkin's performance is more emotionally rich and her character is more rounded than Sergio Castellitto's. Castellitto is a versatile pro, and it's a bit surprising -- perhaps he's over-awed? -- that he doesn't endow Vittorio with more nuance. As Van Hoeij also notes, Rivette uses a lot of improvisation, and potentially the most fun are the clown "numbers", intentionally "threadbare" at the outset, then enriched at Vittorio's presumptuous suggestion in subsequent performances. The artificiality of the film is underlined by the fact that during the circus acts the audience is almost never seen.
The film may provide a kind of skeleton key to Rivette, as Castellitto's quoted remark suggests, and thus may specially appeal to students of his work. On the other hand, it lacks the richness of the director's preceding three films, the 2001 'Histoire de Marie et Julien'/'The Story of Marie and Julien,' the 2003 'Va savoir,' and the 2007 'Ne touchez pas la hache'/'The Duchess of Langeais.' But in its simplicity, clarity, and its sense of resolution, this is very much an enlightened artist's late work, and resembles Shakespeare's late Pastoral romances.
Nominated for the Golden Lion at Venice. Shown as a part of the New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center, 2009.
An essay by the French critic Hélène Frappat relates this to other Rivette films and analyzes its themes. This can be found on the Groupement Général des Cinémas de Recherche website and there is also a translation of the essay into English online. This provides a skeleton key to the skeleton key, so to speak.
Ms. Frappat doesn't mention it, but Vittorio (Castellitto) falls in love with Kate (Birkin) from then on, and yet, after lingering around the circus for a week or two, he is called on to business in Spain, and leaves her. By participating in a reenactment of the dangerous whip trick that had accidentally killed the most important person in her life 15 years earlier, Kate is purged of the lingering sorrow and guilt she has been feeling. She may not presumably return to her Paris occupation of dyeing cloth for designers. I tend to agree with 'Variety' reviewer Boyd Van Hoeij, that Jane Birkin's performance is more emotionally rich and her character is more rounded than Sergio Castellitto's. Castellitto is a versatile pro, and it's a bit surprising -- perhaps he's over-awed? -- that he doesn't endow Vittorio with more nuance. As Van Hoeij also notes, Rivette uses a lot of improvisation, and potentially the most fun are the clown "numbers", intentionally "threadbare" at the outset, then enriched at Vittorio's presumptuous suggestion in subsequent performances. The artificiality of the film is underlined by the fact that during the circus acts the audience is almost never seen.
The film may provide a kind of skeleton key to Rivette, as Castellitto's quoted remark suggests, and thus may specially appeal to students of his work. On the other hand, it lacks the richness of the director's preceding three films, the 2001 'Histoire de Marie et Julien'/'The Story of Marie and Julien,' the 2003 'Va savoir,' and the 2007 'Ne touchez pas la hache'/'The Duchess of Langeais.' But in its simplicity, clarity, and its sense of resolution, this is very much an enlightened artist's late work, and resembles Shakespeare's late Pastoral romances.
Nominated for the Golden Lion at Venice. Shown as a part of the New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center, 2009.