You might assume that Jacques Rivette knows a thing or two about making movies; he directed his first film in 1949 (he turned 80 in March). The old master, long known for dense and sometimes inaccessible narratives, brings a careful control to his production of another old master’s novel, “The Duchess of Langeais,” one of Balzac’s lesser entries in “The Human Comedy.”
What marks the film, set in 1818 Paris, is an austere precision; set in the century of pomp and circumstance, it chooses circumstance over pomp and lacks the romantic set pieces of the genre. There are no battles, no horses, no landscapes, no pageantry; even the costumes are a little drab. Instead, it is the ultimate in movie as pane of glass, completely unselfconscious of its own movieness but simply an intensely focused examination of human behavior on a narrative armature.
The two humans are strange and tricky pieces of work: the General Armand de Montriveau (played by Guillaume Depardieu, son of the great Gerard Depardieu) and the Duchess Antoinette de Langeais (Jeanne Balibar). They are perfectly matched, in that when he’s the sadist, she’s the masochist, and when she’s the sadist, he’s the masochist. They’re the couple with everything: position, wealth, honor, beauty. Too bad they don’t have sex.
She’s one of those women of charisma and wit, to say nothing of commanding intellect, who has Paris wrapped around her pinkie. Even though she’s married, she and the general become a fixture on the social scene. Even in a room full of dandies and chevaliers, they basically just stare at each other. The problem is, even in a room full of nobody else, they just stare at each other.
With its sophisticated psychology, its brilliant story structure and its riveting performances, “The Duchess of Langeais” feels very new, even if everything about it is old.
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“The Duchess of Langeais”
PG for adult themes. 2 hours, 17 minutes. Directed by Jacques Rivette; written by Pascal Bonitzer and Christine Laurent; starring Jeanne Balibar, Guillaume Depardieu, Bulle Ogier, Michel Piccoli, Barbet Schroeder. Opens today at Starz Filmcenter.
