Watch The Duchess of Langeais For Free

Good start, but then it gets ruined

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

A crumbling cloister perched high on a cliff on the Spanish coast, a wounded and rather pathetic general attempting to see a particular nun in the order living therein, who shun the outside world. This might seem an unusual beginning for a film by Jacques Rivette, who has more often traversed a fantasy-land of sorts in modern Paris, but those familiar with the byways of his filmography will remember several period films over the course of his long career, most notably the early The Nun which in many ways foreshadows this late film. An adaptation of a story by Rivette's favorite writer, Balzac, this story of thwarted love and societal repression also at various points recalls the director's obsession with theater, with performance as a daily part of life, and an ambiguous relationship with Catholicism.After a short introductory scene where we find that the general's object of longing has indeed joined the convent, a curtain closes as if to suggest that the principals are indeed play-acting, and opens again on a scene 5 years earlier in the drawing rooms of Napoleanic Paris. The eventual nun is Antoinette, the Duchess of Langeais (Jeanne Balibar), and it is she who begins the cat-and-mouse game that occupies most of the film, spying the limping Marquis de Montriveau (Guillaume Depardieu) at a party and immediately commanding him to call upon her. He does so and from then on a tug of war between the obvious passions, and the duties and strictures of the formal and unforgiving society around them takes over both of their lives with ultimately tragic consequences.The unattainable or impossible love affair has been a major theme in many of Rivette's works, most obviously "L'Amour fou", "Hurlevent" and "The Story of Marie and Julien". Duchess is cooler, more detached, and has an aura of inevitability or fatalism about it, and it lacks the carnality of those earlier films also, being almost entirely a talky mood-piece - though there is one extraordinary "kidnapping" scene which brings briefly to mind the conspiracy-world of many earlier works. And yet Rivette's always remarkable and thoughtful mise-en-scene, his slow camera movements punctuated by title cards (often at unpredictable points) does develop an aura of suspense and growing fascination. Will Montriveau's eventual finding of his lost Antoinette ultimately result in happiness? In death? In scandal? The film is too honest and stripped of inessentials to allow us an easy guess - its only foreshadowing lies in whatever we bring to it of our own knowledge of human nature.As usual in Rivette's late work the period detail is exceptional, William Lubtchansky's camera-work is as fine as ever, and the acting is committed. It's nice to see Bulle Ogier again, still beautiful and mysterious in her late 60s, now playing a supporting role (the wise and imperious aunt) but still dominating the screen in her couple of scenes. The production design (by Emmanuel de Chauvigny, who has worked with the director for years) is also wonderful - one of the things I love so much about Rivette is that he pays so much attention to texture, to the look and feel of doors and wallpaper, lamps and tables. Only David Lynch comes to mind as a contemporary director so consistently committed to these kinds of details and the "feel" of objects.Overall this doesn't feel quite like major Rivette to me, but like his previous "Marie and Julien" I'm still thinking about it, and liking it more the more I reflect. Canadian-release DVD watched.

Honoré De Balzac's novel 'La Duchesse Du Langeais' has been transformed by screenwriter Pascal Bonitzer for the screen as 'Ne Touchez Pas a la Hache' and the result is a mixture of proscenium stage pictures, and scenes separated by written dialog that merely lets the viewer know such unnecessary details such as that fact that time has passed, and well over two hours of an uninvolved courtship between a sensualist and a coquette. While it is a pleasure to remember the times of Balzac and his way with lusty themes, watching this film version can be tedious - at best. Fans of director Jacques Rivette will find much to enjoy in this adaptation: the pacing of the film feels important to his concept of the development of the story - the stifling boredom of the evenings of balls in Paris and the isolation of the soldiers' lives, deprived of the companionship of lovely ladies. He has cast Jeanne Balibar as the title character Antoinette De Langeais , a married lady of means with a penchant for flirting and coquettish behavior with important men, and Guillaume Depardieu as General Armand De Montriveau, a war hero who lost his leg and returns to Paris vulnerable for love, namely in the instant attraction to Antoinette. The tale is one of a game of the General's passionate love and the duchess' toying with his advances until a climax is reached which changes the approach of each character with rather disastrous consequences for both. As a period piece the film works well: the costumes and settings are splendid and the scenes in the endless ballrooms are full of grace and lovely music. But the flow of the encounters between Antoinette and Armand are an interminable series of momentary repetitious encounters with a sound track that seems bent on capturing the opening and closing of doors and the loud pacing of the crippled general as he enters and leaves the naughty lady's chamber. There is little to draw us into caring for the characters and after the first hour and a half of the film the courtship begs our indulgence. In French with English subtitles. Definitely recommended for fans of Jacques Rivette's films or Balzac's stories, but a 'long song' for casual viewers. Grady Harp

The novels of French writer Honore de Balzac concern themselves with the corrupting influence of society's illusions and express disdain for the shallow games people play. This theme is especially present in his short story "Don't Touch the Axe", later titled "La Duchesse de Langeais" after it was incorporated into his larger work known as "La Comedy Humaine". This story that casts aspersions on the artificiality of French high society in the early 1800s and the stilted rules that govern their affairs has now been brought to the screen by 80-year-old French auteur Jacques Rivette. Originally planned in 1948 as a collaboration of the talents of Greta Garbo and James Mason, directed by Max Ophuls, Rivette's thirty-first feature film, The Duchess of Langeais, is a period piece that faithfully follows Balzac's text yet contains touches of Rivette's wry humor in a way that Balzac probably did not envision.Slow paced and exquisitely detailed, the film opens in a convent on the Spanish isle of Majorca. Armand de Montriveau, a General and a war hero in Napolenon's army is played by Guilliame Depardieu, son of the great French actor Gerard Depardieu. Armand has found his lover, Antoinette (Jeanne Balibar), after a five year search and is granted one interview with the now Carmelite nun. Interrupted by intertitles that indicate a character's internal state or the passage of time, the story flashes back five years to tell the tale of the thwarted lovers and their sexless passion. At a social event, Montriveau asks for an introduction to the stately Duchess of Langeais, a scion of a highly placed family, who he views across the next room. It is apparent from the outset that the two live in different worlds. The Duchess exists in a society of dances and balls where everything revolves around manners while Montriveau is a soldier who is awkward and unrefined.She is married but her husband is not seen, allowing Montriveau the opening to court her with stories of his desert escapades. His story becomes extended over several nights as the Duchess fakes illness and disinterest, and his telling of the story becomes only an excuse for their continued meetings. Balibar is mesmerizing as she draws her lover close then pushes him away until their romance becomes little more than a tug of war with intricate battle plans laid on both sides. Although Armand claims to be desperately in love, he is a passive suitor, devoted to satisfying her whims but not his desire. When he finally becomes the pursued rather than the pursuer, the table is set for emotional distress and increased psychological warfare. In the film's most dramatic moment, Montriveau stages a kidnapping that is intended to impress Antoinette with his intractable frustration but comes off merely as a means of convincing himself.Rivette is a careful observer as he watches the two warriors thrust and parry, offering a view of love as a tool of power. The tension is played out for such a long time that irritation and boredom eventually sets in but is held in check by the film's elegance and delicate physical beauty. With a feeling of unreality, the floorboards creak as the characters pass over them, lost in their own world, engaged in their rituals as if sleepwalking through a museum. Like a stately painting, The Duchess of Langeais is more to be admired than loved and I was rarely moved, yet days later I find that the film's strange, sad, haunting quality has returned over and over to memory like a sly obsession that has insinuated itself into my mind and refuses to let go.

I find it ironic that many reviewers walked out of this movie because, for me, the characters constantly walking on and off scene were what killed the movie for me. I dare someone to count the abrupt entrances/exits through darkened doorways. Ohhh, what do these darkened portals portend? NOTHING. They serve as clunky scene transitions AND the director felt these weren't clues enough because the story is also interrupted with narratives informing us that the next scene continues two weeks later, one month later, five years earlier, ad nauseum...A poor film must provide a written narrative to be understood; a good film will let the story speak for itself.