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(aka "Nor'west" or "Northwest Wind" or "Noroît (une vengeance)")
directed by Jacques Rivette
France 1976
The strangest by far of Jacques Rivette's films (1976), and perhaps the last gasp of the modernist strain that infused his work from L'amour fou to Out 1 to Celine and Julie Go Boating, this is a violent and unsettling fusion of a female pirate adventure (filmed on some of the same locations used for The Vikings and inspired in part by Lang's Moonfleet, but set in no particular place or period), mythological fantasy, Jacobean tragedy (with many lines borrowed from Tourneur's Revenger's Tragedy), experimental dance film (with live improvised music from a talented trio of musicians), and personal psychodrama. The eclectic cast includes Geraldine Chaplin, Bernadette Lafont, Kika Markham (Two English Girls), and a few members of Carolyn Carlson's dance company. While the mise en scene and locations are often stunning, the film seems contrived to confound conventional emotional reactions of any sort. It's a movie where the casual slitting of someone's throat and the swishing sounds of Lafont's leather pants are made to seem equally relevant--a world apart from Rivette's more recent La belle noiseuse. Yet Rivette's feeling for duration, immediacy, and moods of menace are fully present here, and days or weeks after you see this chilling conundrum of a movie, sounds and images may come back to haunt you. Rarely screened--the film never even had a commercial run in France--this monstrous work deserves to be seen as a uniquely disquieting experience. Jonathan Rosenbaum's Capsule Review in the Chicago Reader HERE |
Theatrical Release: 1976
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DVD Review: Les films de ma vie - Region 2 - PAL
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Distribution |
Les films de ma vie Region 2 - PAL |
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Runtime | 2:08:52 (4% PAL speedup) | |
Video |
1.85:1 Original Aspect Ratio
16X9 enhanced |
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NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes. |
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Audio | French (Dolby Digital 2.0) | |
Subtitles | NO SUBTITLES | |
Features |
Release Information: Studio: Les films de ma vie Aspect Ratio:
Edition Details: Chapters 14 |
Comments: |
Les films de ma vie presents Jacques
Rivette's rare gem "Noroit" in a Double Disc Set with "Duelle".
As wholly satisfying as the
video quality is the sound. The 2.0 French soundtrack sounds clean
throughout. THERE ARE NO SUBTITLES OFFERED! |
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(aka "Les filles de feu" or "Scènes de la vie parallèle: 2 - Duelle (une quarantaine)" or "Twilight (A Quarantine)" or "La Vengeresse" )
directed by Jacques Rivette
France 1976
Chéreau’s staging, it’s more than sufficient to contemplate
its impact on Duelle. Our innocent heroine (Hermine
Karaghuez instantly recalling Betty Schneider in Paris nous
appartient) recites lines from Cocteau’s play as a kind of
incantation, much as Geraldine Chaplin reads lines from
Cyril Tourneur’s The Revenger’s Tragedy in Noroit. But that
reworking of Fritz Lang’s Moonfleet and Tourneur’s (Jacques
bien sur) Anne of the Indies (1951) is enacted on a rocky
island of no temporal or spatial specificity. Duelle takes
place in an eerily unpopulated Paris in a perpetual twilight
(the neo-Joycean Twhylight is the film’s alternate title)
where it always seems to be just before dawn. The settings
are completely real, yet appear to have been created in
order for Rivette to discover them: an aquarium out of The
Lady From Shanghai (Orson Welles, 1947), a jardins des
plantes redolent of greenhouse at the start of The Big Sleep
(Howard Hawks, 1946), a dance club called Le Rhumba out of
Criss Cross (Robert Siodmak, 1949), and a ballet classroom
that evokes Pandora’s Box (G.W. Pabst, 1929) – with Berto in
a hairdo (and accompanying manner) remindful of Valeska Gert
in Renoir’s Nana (1926). Most important of all there’s Jean
Weiner - a composer who has lent his talents to films by
Renoir, Duvivier, Franju and Bresson. But what he’s here for
is to recall his days as a pianist at Cocteau’s favorite
hang-out Le Boeuf sur le Toit. And thus he is live on the
set spinning out improvisations in numerous scenes in the
film’s first three quarters – with the characters treating
his visible presence as no more noteworthy than any other
aspect of the setting. While he’s joined by a small ensemble
to serve as the pit band in the scenes at Le Rhumba, it’s
other moments that stand out – particularly his last at the
dance class, where Berto sends a hopelessly diamond-addicted
Garcia on her way into an alley where snow is gently
falling. Excerpts from David Ehrenstein's Article in Senses of Cinema HERE |
Poster
Theatrical Release: September 15th, 1976
Reviews More Reviews DVD Reviews
DVD Review: Les films de ma vie - Region 2 - PAL
DVD Box Cover |
|
CLICK to order from: |
Distribution |
Les films de ma vie Region 2 - PAL |
|
Runtime | 1:55:24 (4% PAL speedup) | |
Video |
1.85:1 Original Aspect Ratio
16X9 enhanced |
|
NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes. |
||
Bitrate |
|
|
Audio | French (Dolby Digital 2.0) | |
Subtitles | NO SUBTITLES | |
Features |
Release Information: Studio: Les films de ma vie Aspect Ratio:
Edition Details: Chapters 14 |
Comments: |
The image of "Duelle" may be a tad softer than "Noroit". There is also a slight amount of (tolerable) digital noise. Other than that we get the expected sharpness, fine contrast and vividness of colors (even though "Duelle" is a darker film visually than "Noroit"; its lighting is more noirish.)
Here, again, we have a flawless 2.0
soundtrack and, again, no English subtitles, as well as the un-subtitled
Hélène Frappat film analysis. |
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