Jacques Rivette is strongly associated with the infamous New Wavelet which tried its level best via meaningless tracking shots, hand-held cameras, jump cuts and an almost pathological hatred for anything shot in a Studio by professional technicians and/or adapted from a Literary source to bring the French Cinema to its knees.
In the fullness of time most of the mavericks - with Godard a notable exception - put their toys back in the pram and turned to kissing rather than biting the hand that fed them, witness Truffaut's Le Dernier Metro, for example. It's difficult to find something less New Wavelet than Honore Balzac yet here he is, aristocrats, society balls and all and finding his name juxtaposed with that of Rivette.
Rivette, of course, is not known for dashing off a story in 90 minutes when he can take four hours and here he splits the difference bringing it in at two hours fifteen although it FEELS like watching the Entire Human Comedy without the laughs. Ironically Rivette resorts to punctuating his movie with title cards that read 'one hour later' or, even better 'a short time later' when you could have sworn it was more like three decades since the opening credits. There is absolutely no chemistry at all between Jeanne Balibar (who was so good in Rivette's Va Savoir) and Guillaume Depardieu who appears seriously fossilized throughout. The Academics/pseuds are gonna LOVE this one.
In the fullness of time most of the mavericks - with Godard a notable exception - put their toys back in the pram and turned to kissing rather than biting the hand that fed them, witness Truffaut's Le Dernier Metro, for example. It's difficult to find something less New Wavelet than Honore Balzac yet here he is, aristocrats, society balls and all and finding his name juxtaposed with that of Rivette.
Rivette, of course, is not known for dashing off a story in 90 minutes when he can take four hours and here he splits the difference bringing it in at two hours fifteen although it FEELS like watching the Entire Human Comedy without the laughs. Ironically Rivette resorts to punctuating his movie with title cards that read 'one hour later' or, even better 'a short time later' when you could have sworn it was more like three decades since the opening credits. There is absolutely no chemistry at all between Jeanne Balibar (who was so good in Rivette's Va Savoir) and Guillaume Depardieu who appears seriously fossilized throughout. The Academics/pseuds are gonna LOVE this one.