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Sorry, this movie sucks

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

good back-story, and good acting

Excellent but underrated film

I read the comment posted on the sight and felt I had to give a counterbalance... I saw this film about two years ago on a basic VHS copy and was astonished. Yes of course you need to be prepared to deal with a long playing time, and a pace that may at first appear on the slow side, but BUT... ...Rivette pulls off an extraordinary coup in managing to ratchet up the sense of paranoia so intensely that, by about a third of the way through the film, you find yourself watching even the most innocent, apparently event-less scene with total rapt attention. Essentially taking core Hitchcockian suspense techniques and pushing them almost even further than that Master did, this has to be seen to be believed, in my opinion. Bonnaire is extraordinary; you become engrossed in just watching her thinking! The whole thing is a text book example of how to manipulate the viewer's mind to such an extent that they end up directing the film themselves... My only cavil might be the ending - I needed perhaps a touch more to be brought out onto the surface, but otherwise, (and certainly if you know Rivette's other work) open your mind and try it.

For a start, it's not as boring, stale and jejune as Greek mythology. Really not up to Out 1, Merry-Go-Round, etc., but definitely a nice watch.However, someone has posted a comment making this movie "a modern Electra". That's not true. Of course, Electra must have been very much in Rivette's mind when conceiving the script. But the influences are far richer than just the Electra myth, and Rivette presents a much more subtle story than just a modern Electra. The most significant difference might be the motif for the murder of the father. Agamemnon was not murdered for noble reasons (as th father in the movie), but because Clytemnestra had an affair and wanted to get rid of him. This takes us away from the primitive Greek "A sleeps with B's C", "C's D therefore kills B and A's E", but then "E's F tries to sleep with A and F's G before killing himself, but fails to kill C" etc. Of course, we never learn in the movie where the brother got the photo (which reminds one of the oracle telling Electra's brother to get a revenge for the murder of their father), but then again, all the stuff about shooting the wrong person has nothing to do with the story of Electra. Well, notice the complete lack of intervention by the gods (in this case, mostly Appolo and Athena) in the movie; once again, something without which a Greek myth isn't a Greek myth anymore. Also, the nice twist at the end of the movie - Sylvie getting shot herself, again by accident - has no counterpart in the Greek myth. The story of the real Electra actually ends sort of well after Orest is found not guilty by the judges.On the side: The story of Electra can only be told faithfully if there is a story of a war in the background. Well, in the movie there isn't.So, please... It's really nice for some people that they are oh-so-cultivated. But they should either come up with a subtle analysis of the links between a modern script and some Greek (or otherwise classical) subject, or leave it.Anyway, having read the comment which turns "Secret Défense" into a remake of Vertigo, I should have to apologize. At least Electra clearly is intended reference/source of inspiration... whatever. On the other hand, the comparison with Vertigo and the comparison of Vertigo to Greenaway's "Cook, Thief, Wife, Lover" is so far fetched you cannot even see where the commentator got the idea. I've noticed the tendency of some (mostly Americans) to think of Hitchcock as the center of the cinematographic universe. Let me tell you: He isn't. He has made some entertaining films, but they are mostly based on overacted simplistic scripts, which fake psycho-grammatic depth but really just display simple psychologically prototyped characters.About the title of "Secret Défense". Those (non-native speakers of French) who are wondering about the strange ordering of adjective and noun in the title in French should go here: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_classifi%C3%A9e_en_France In this light, it is of course stupid of the US distributor to call the film "Secret Defense" in English - because that, as far as I can judge, means something completely different (i.e., it just has its literal meaning in English).

Five years after Sylvie's father dies, he comes to haunt her. It all starts when Paul, her unstable brother, brings her a picture where his father is seen at the train station before he jumped to his death. Paul points to a shadowy figure in the background and both come to the conclusion is Walser, an enigmatic figure that is now in charge of their father's business.When Paul vows to avenge his father, Sylvie decides to do it herself because she figures in her brother's mental state, he'll probably botch it. Sylvie, who has confronted Walser in his office, after she has received the unexpected visit of Veronique, his secretary, prepares for the trip to the country estate where she will commit the crime. Unfortunately, instead of killing Walser, she accidentally kills Veronique.Walser disposes the body, and makes Sylvie his accomplice. Things are further complicated by the arrival of Ludivine, Vero's sister who bears an uncanny resemblance to her dead sibling. Walser proceeds to seduce the young woman, who stays in the estate, much to the chagrin of Sylvie.The key to the story lies with Genevieve, Sylvie's mother. The mystery involves the strange suicide by Elizabeth, her oldest daughter when Sylvie was a young girl. That tragedy involved the dead father as the one responsible for the young woman's death. Walser, who appears to be the guilty party all along, turns out to be an instrument used by Genevieve to avenge Elizabeth's death.Jacques Rivette's 1998 film "Secret Defense" is a thriller in the style of Hitchcock, but he doesn't hold any surprises, since he doesn't hide anything from the viewer. This story is told as Sylvie sees it. As such, we are always following her, either on the Metro when she goes to see Paul, or taking train trips in which her mental state is right there for us to see. This is a variation on the theme of the classical Electra, adapted to a modern setting.Sandrine Bonnaire makes a great Sylvie. Ms. Bonnaire is never boring, in spite of the length of the film. Jerzy Radzilowicz, a distinguished Polish actor plays Walser in a complex performance. He doesn't endear to us from the start, but by the end we realize what's in his head. Laure Masrac appears in the dual role of Veronique/Ludivine with great ease. Gregoire Colin has only limited opportunity, as well as Francoise Fabien."Secret Defense" is not a film for everyone. Like anything from this French director, he is more interested in what his characters are doing at any given time as he takes us along for those rides, something that with another man at the helm, perhaps those scenes would be edited. The film makes sense after all the evidence is examined, but it might appear boring for those viewers that Mr. Rivette lost along the way to solving the main issue in the story.

You know a movie is a great movie not when it is quoted. Many are. It is great when following filmmakers assume it as part of the world and reinvent it the same way they do to experiences in "real" life. I'm not as wild about Hitchcock's complete work as others, but "Vertigo" and another of his films are among the most important and surely on any short list from Hollywood.I've had the pleasure of screening "Vertigo" together with two of its most interesting children.First, you know the story in Vertigo, about a play within the play that is a more like a play within life. The way it is constructed (except for that dumb camera trick that everyone fawns over) emphasizes manifold details about illusion and the illusion of film-making. But the thing is abstracted from life, as all normal movies must be. We know from thousands of conventions when watching that it is a staging of life, not life.There's one scene in Vertigo, where our hero discovers his love in a restaurant. There's a change in color and mood. Peter Greenway took this one scene and layered a whole new film reality on "Vertigo." It is as abstracted from the world of Vertigo as Vertigo is from life.In Greenaway's "Cook, Thief, Lover," the world is indeed bifurcated into the "kitchen" where things are created and the "serving room." Moving from one to the other changes colors in accord with Vertigo. "Cook, Thief" deals with the same issues as Vertigo but with more abstraction: books, love and watching movies as literally eating people.Now we have this, which moves to the other side. It attempts to deal with all the issues and methods of "Vertigo" but by deabstracting into the real world. In the real world, events do not arrange themselves for theatrical convenience. If we need a character to go from the city to the country to do a killing, it takes some time.Accidents occur. Some motives never become clear. When a murdered girl's twin shows up and takes the place of her sister in the bed of a conspiratorial man with an officially secret life, we expect plot turns and surprises. They never come. This is life embossed with a movie.That is, until the very, very last scene. This is extremely stylized as if to gently bring us back to the movie world we thought we were entering at the beginning.There are few French filmmakers of any era worth following. This is one.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.