France 2004
Directed by
Jacques Rivette
150 minutes
Rated M
Reviewed by
Bernard Hemingway
Story Of Marie And Julien, The
Jacques Rivette was one of the French New Wavers who in the 1950s were responsible for validating the work of Hitchcock and it could be suggested that Histoire De Marie Et Julien contains its own "MacGuffin" - defined by Hitchcock as a device which keeps the narrative moving forward but which is actually peripheral to the film’s real agenda. Here it is the blackmail by clocksmith, Julien (Jerzy Radziwilowicz), of a mysterious woman called Madam X (Anne Brochet). This appears initially to be the main plot interest of the film although we are not told why the woman is being blackmailed. However whilst it starts to become evident that we are not watching a conventional thriller, it is not clear what we are watching as Juliet’s relationship with Marie (Emmanuelle Béart) takes over the principal focal point of the film.
A work which recalls the Japanese tradition of eroticized ghost stories such as Oshima’s Empire Of The Passions (1978) Rivette takes us on a journey into a world of parallel realities, dreams and fantasies. It is however, unlike Oshima’s film, not a traditional ghost story and the director seems intent on playing with our conventional expectations as not only the narrative perspective shifts but so does its logic. Whilst skilfully realized, whether all this deserves 150 minutes is another question and one cannot help but feel captive in Rivette’s intellectual game. Surprisingly, many reviewers seemed to have been entranced by the film, or at least pretended to be so.
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