3 vues du 36 vues du Pic Saint Loup

Click images to see them uncropped:


Jacques Rivette and Jane Birkin; oh, to be a fly on the wall…

“At times, nothing is everything,” says one of the performers meandering through 36 vues du Pic Saint Loup (“Thirty-six views of Pic Saint Loup,” 2009). New on DVD under the anglicized Around a Small Mountain, it’s Jacques Rivette’s most recent picture, and, clocking in at 84 minutes, uncharacteristically trim. For me it plays like jazz, the director creating something from what appears to be nothing by combining abstract with conventional forms, the same way as he did in La bande des quatre (1989), Haut bas fragile (1995) and Va Savoir (2001). As one character ruminates, “Even if it’s a bad idea, it’s still an idea, which brings to another idea, which might be less bad or even better,” which could be the credo behind Rivette and company’s on-the-spot formation of the ‘script.’ It also reunites him with Jane Birkin (L'amour par terre, 1984; La belle noiseuse, 1991) and Sergio Castellitto (Va Savoir). I’ll savor it.


Jane with half-clown Sergio Castellitto


Jacques and Sergio