Histoire de Marie et Julien (2003)
(The Story of Marie and Julien)
Country: FR/IT
Technical: col 151m
Director: Jacques Rivette
Cast: Emmanuelle Béart, Jerzy Radziwilowicz, Anne Brochet
Synopsis:
A misanthropic clocksmith who lives with his cat is in the midst of blackmailing a forger of Japanese fabrics when he renews acquaintance with a beautiful woman he met a year previously. She moves in with him but all is not quite right and before long it becomes apparent that he has more than a business transaction in common with the blackmail victim.
Review:
An unusually unsympathetic protagonist and a heroine of remarkable beauty at first seem to strain credibility, until we see that her 'need' of him is more down to other contingencies. The drab everyday scenes in his enormous, cluttered house - which we get to know intimately by the end - are interrupted by almost static bouts of intense love-making, with Mlle. Béart undeniably made flesh, if not blood. Meanwhile the clocksmith is shown working on a huge clock mechanism, underlining the impression of time standing still. The conclusion, in which time is apparently erased before Marie is endowed with a new lease of life and the challenge of reconquest confounds any looking for Shyamalan-style twists.
(The Story of Marie and Julien)
Country: FR/IT
Technical: col 151m
Director: Jacques Rivette
Cast: Emmanuelle Béart, Jerzy Radziwilowicz, Anne Brochet
Synopsis:
A misanthropic clocksmith who lives with his cat is in the midst of blackmailing a forger of Japanese fabrics when he renews acquaintance with a beautiful woman he met a year previously. She moves in with him but all is not quite right and before long it becomes apparent that he has more than a business transaction in common with the blackmail victim.
Review:
An unusually unsympathetic protagonist and a heroine of remarkable beauty at first seem to strain credibility, until we see that her 'need' of him is more down to other contingencies. The drab everyday scenes in his enormous, cluttered house - which we get to know intimately by the end - are interrupted by almost static bouts of intense love-making, with Mlle. Béart undeniably made flesh, if not blood. Meanwhile the clocksmith is shown working on a huge clock mechanism, underlining the impression of time standing still. The conclusion, in which time is apparently erased before Marie is endowed with a new lease of life and the challenge of reconquest confounds any looking for Shyamalan-style twists.
(The Story of Marie and Julien)
Country: FR/IT
Technical: col 151m
Director: Jacques Rivette
Cast: Emmanuelle Béart, Jerzy Radziwilowicz, Anne Brochet
Synopsis:
A misanthropic clocksmith who lives with his cat is in the midst of blackmailing a forger of Japanese fabrics when he renews acquaintance with a beautiful woman he met a year previously. She moves in with him but all is not quite right and before long it becomes apparent that he has more than a business transaction in common with the blackmail victim.
Review:
An unusually unsympathetic protagonist and a heroine of remarkable beauty at first seem to strain credibility, until we see that her 'need' of him is more down to other contingencies. The drab everyday scenes in his enormous, cluttered house - which we get to know intimately by the end - are interrupted by almost static bouts of intense love-making, with Mlle. Béart undeniably made flesh, if not blood. Meanwhile the clocksmith is shown working on a huge clock mechanism, underlining the impression of time standing still. The conclusion, in which time is apparently erased before Marie is endowed with a new lease of life and the challenge of reconquest confounds any looking for Shyamalan-style twists.