Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Doomtomylo a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

gavin6942 The Queen of the Night battles the Queen of the Sun over a magical diamond that will allow the winner to remain on Earth, specifically in modern day Paris.Marilù Parolini originally came from Italy, but moved to France where she got mixed up in the French New Wave movement. As part of that, she wrote this "experimental fantasy" with her husband, director Jacques Rivette. At this point, he had just finished "Celine and Julie Go Boating" (1974), which is among his best-known films today.Star Juliet Berto also came out of "Boating", though she is more generally associated with the work of Godard. Co-star Bulle Ogier is more often seen as a Rivette regular, though the two appeared in many of the same films. Ogier also has the distinction of being in Luis Bunuel's "Discreet Charm", which is widely loved by critics (though I was less than impressed).

gengar843 There is a question whether this film is about opposites or contradictions. Neither. It is about sameness. For all the talk, Viva and Leni have the same goals, the same plan, the same path. Elsa/Jeanne are not a dichotomy of two personalities in one person, simply the same person whether in the dance hall or not, and her aspiration to the magical diamond is too much for her simple self. The protagonists are no better than the antagonists. Don't argue, it's true.Next question: Another reviewer asks: "What does it mean when Jean Babilee, outdoing Travolta, raises his arm and smashes a dancehall mirror through telekinesis?" Pierrot (the clown) is the foil, stronger than the females believe, or want to believe. Only progressives will be dumbfounded at the superiority of the male, or at least Rivette making this cinema assertion.Next question: The same reviewer asks: "Why does he wake up in the bottom of a parking garage and talk about killing a sister we've never seen?" Pierrot lives the life of simplicity, even Christ. It is not Viva who is the God figure, but Pierrot. The allusion to "sister" may be Satan. Why a female Satan? Again, this film holds up male superiority over female wiles. It is Pierrot who plays Viva and Leni from the start - he is never fooled, no matter how beautiful they are.Next question: The same reviewer asks, "Why does he become graceful and muscular, almost superhuman, when Bulle Ogier counts backwards and changes the universe to black-and-white?" If you haven't guessed, the male is superior. He is the most graceful, or full of Grace, if you like. There are many religious aspects here if one is open to it, obvious and overt.Next question: The same reviewer asks: "Why does Juliet Berto keep changing her costume?" Evil unmasked must always put on a new face. Today's fascist is tomorrow's "progressive" or "nationalist" (naturally, what I just said is up for further debate).Next question: The same reviewer asks: "How do you escape the dancehall?" A great question. The piano player, always rancorous, ever soothing, sets the tone for much of the dialogue. This indicates the backdrop of universal law (music) to which we all must dance or otherwise yell over. The dancehall is not really a prison, but a perceived prison. One may leave anytime, if one wishes. The actual question most people ask is not "How do I leave?" but rather "How do I change the music?" In other words, they like the fun but not the rules.I found this film to be a 1970's gem of low-budget quirkiness, whether this was deliberate from Rivette, of necessity due to funding, or by accident in post-production. The story is slight, not really complicated, good vs. evil, with a few nihilist elements that "None are good, no, not one." Nothing Tarantino or Peckinpah, not DeNiro evil, just female temptation, and not even in all its succubus delight.I recommend this film not as art but as basic entertainment, with cute leads (especially Bulle Ogier), slight lesbian overtones, meaningless dramatic interplay, and a cool surreal ending.

Delly Duelle seems to have been instantly cursed just by being the follow-up to Celine and Julie Go Boating, to this day the only Rivette film that the average buff concerns himself with ( and oh, how wrongly. ) Having finally gotten a chance to watch the film, I can see why. Where Celine and Julie could furnish a thousand college students with thesis papers on feminine play vs. masculine order, and the construction of meaning through the assumption of various roles associated with gender, and so forth, Duelle drops the intellectual ballast completely. Rivette outs himself as a mystic with this film, closer to charlatan-geniuses like Stockhausen or Rasputin than to Godard. This movie is almost like a Rosetta Stone, more dense and concentrated than anything else he's done, that the future expert will be able to use to decode his work.Rivette's overt and unmistakable belief in the eternal presence of God and Satan on earth makes this film unfashionable to the materialistic tastes of the cultured liberal brute. If it were less sincere, this film could have been one of Rivette's most popular. There is always something special about the first collaboration between a cinematographer and a director who would later go on to make a more-or-less permanent team -- such as Ballhaus and Fassbinder with the equally undervalued Whity -- and Duelle marks the first time Rivette worked with William Lubtchansky, who has been his right arm all the way up until Marie and Julien. Lubtchansky takes Rivette out of the scratchy 16 mm. ghetto and right into glossy, bejewelled Eurotrash, complete with a gliding Ophuls camera and Sternberg lighting. Only Harry Kumel made more stylish, elegant movies in the 70's than Duelle, though they are lesser in terms of content. But Rivette still takes pains, as always, to make the film feel deliberately antique, faded, so that it will be perfect for revival in the interplanetary silent movie theatres of the future.This movie is so attuned to my mental state that I felt like I was writing it as it proceeded, but most people will probably just find it incomprehensible. Rivette revels not in contradictions but in SEEMING contradictions. Bulle Ogier, apparently playing God, counts backwards all the time, kills the hero's girlfriend and attacks another important character with flames, yet she is still God, and still perfect good. There are many lines that will probably annoy non-devotees of French poetry, such as "The dream is the night's aquarium." And what does it mean when Jean Babilee, outdoing Travolta, raises his arm and smashes a dancehall mirror through telekinesis? Why does he wake up in the bottom of a parking garage and talk about killing a sister we've never seen ( not incidentally named Sylvie, like the innocent Sandrine Bonnaire in 1998's Secret Defense? ) Why does he become graceful and muscular, almost superhuman, when Bulle Ogier counts backwards and changes the universe to black-and-white? Why does Juliet Berto keep changing her costume? How do you escape the dancehall? If you know the answers to these questions, then it's time for you to assume the role of Sphinx, and maybe one day join Rivette in the stars.

cllrdr-1 This is part one of what was to be Jacques Rivette's four-part project "Scenes de la Vie Parallelle". The idea was to create four different films with a running sub-plot involving a mythical war between goddesses of the Sun and the Moon, fighting for possession of a mysterious jewel. This one was a "film noir" modelled after "The Seventh Victim" (which Rivette screened for the cast before the shooting began) with bits of "Kiss Me Deadly", "Lady From Shanghai" and "Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne" thrown in for good measure. An uncanny mood piece it takes place in a weirdly unpopulated Paris. Jean Weiner (who used to play piano at "Le Bouef sur le Toit") supplies live piano improvisations here, much in the manner of an accompanist for a silent movie."Noroit" the second film in this series was a pirate adventure movie inspired by "Moonfleet" utilizing Tourneur's "The Revenger's Tragedy" as a frequently recited text --much in the way that Cocteau's "The Knights of the Roundtable" is quoted here.After these two Rivette began "Marie et Julien" with Albert Finney and Leslie Caron, but suffered a nervous breakdown three days into shooting. This brought the project to an end. This year (2003) however, he's gone back to "Marie et Julien" again with Emmanuelle Beart and Jerzy Radzilowitz. Maybe the four-part project will be compeleted after all.