Karlovy Vary International Film Festival

July 4 - 12, 2008

Don't Touch the Axe
Ne touchez pas la hache

Discussion My Program

Colour, 35 mm
France, Italy, 2007, 137 min
Section: Horizons

Film screenings:
3K3 - 6.7., 16:00, Panasonic Cinema
5L4 - 8.7., 19:30, Cinema Lázně III

Czech subtitles, no English translation

Director: Jacques Rivette
Screenplay: Pascal Bonitzer, Christine Laurent, Jacques Rivette podle povídky Vévodkyně z Langeais / based on the short story The Duchess of Langeais by Honoré de Balzac
Dir. of Photography: William Lubtchansky
Music: Pierre Allio
Designer: Manu de Chauvigny
Editor: Nicole Lubtchansky
Producer: Martine Marignac, Maurice Tinchant
Production: Pierre Grise Productions
Sales: Les Films du Losange
Contact: Národní filmový archiv Praha

Cast

Jeanne Balibar, Guillaume Depardieu, Michel Piccoli, Bulle Ogier, Barbet Schroeder

Synopsis

After the Napoleonic Wars come to an end, the young general Montriveau starts getting invitations to the noble salons of Paris whose company delights in his sullenness and incorruptible candour. The beautiful Duchess of Langeais manages to secure Montriveau’s love as a prized trophy. In time, the couple learn to appreciate the difference between diversion, passion and real love, but too late to prevent the inevitable tragedy. Rivette’s film is not a “film adaptation of Balzac”, where it might have attempted to reproduce the literary work to suit the spirit of the contemporary era. The great French filmmaker avoids superficial illustration by respecting Balzac, together with the latter’s characterisations and seemingly antiquated style, as a true partner in communicating his own lifelong obsession with the “lie who always speaks the truth” (Cocteau). It’s perfectly natural for one of the most remarkable films of 2007 to appeal more to the viewer who won’t desert the filmmaker the moment the game ceases being a game.

About the director

Jacques Rivette (b. 1928, Rouen, France) was a contributor for the most influential post-war film magazine Cahiers du cinéma; he made several short films and, concurrently with his colleagues from the New Wave, he moved over to features with the film Paris Belongs to Us (1958). The censorship scandal surrounding his next film The Nun (1965), the stylistic masterpiece L’amour fou (1969) and the 13-hour experiment Out 1 (1970), however, did not earn him the kind of public acclaim enjoyed by the debuts of Truffaut or Godard. It was only later that audiences began to appreciate his work, with the brilliant fantasy Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974). Rivette’s subsequent films also bore the seal of hermetic sophistication, which was unexpectedly broken by the four-hour, Balzac-inspired La Belle noiseuse and the classy comedy Who Knows? (2001). The films from his “mature period”, The Story of Marie and Julien (2003) and also his latest contribution, show the director at his best.

Contacts

Les Films du Losange
22, avenue Pierre 1er de Serbie, 75116 Paris
France
Tel: +33 1 444 387 26
Fax: +33 1 495 206 40
E-mail: info@filmsdulosange.fr
www: www.filmsdulosange.fr

Národní filmový archiv Praha
Malešická 12, 130 00 Praha 3
Česká republika
Tel: +420 271 770 500
Fax: +420 271 770 501
E-mail: nfa@nfa.cz
www: www.nfa.cz

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