Jacques Rivette's masterful film Don't Touch The Axe tells the tale of an ill-fated love affair between a Parisian socialite and a Napoleonic war hero. Their story unfolds amidst the extravagant balls of restoration-era Paris where the handsome General Armand de Montriveau (Guillaume Depardieu) encounters the beautiful coquettish but married Antoinette de Langeais (Jeanne Balibar). Vowing that she will be his lover Montriveau pursues the alluring Antoinette who in turn orchestrates a calculating game of seduction but repeatedly rebuffs his advances. Humiliated... Montriveau seeks revenge just as Antoinette's passion for him awakens and a perverse romantic power struggle ensues. Once again adapting Balzac - the source of his acclaimed La Belle Noiseuse - Rivette's subtle and superbly acted drama is a riveting exploration of the intricacies of love and desire. [show more]
The latest film from French New Wave legend Jacques Rivette is both a perfectly executed period love story and a subtly hilarious deconstruction of such historical dramas. It's a film whose placid surfaces belie the complex nature of the emotions at stake and the games being played, both between the two main characters (Jeanne Balibar and Guillaume Depardieu) and between the director and his audience. The film concerns the on/off courtship between a duchess and a general, who essentially take turns playing hard to get over the course of many years, leading each other on ever more outrageous quests in order to earn the other's love. As a parody of the ridiculousness of social conventions, the film is at times surprisingly funny, the laughs coming unexpectedly and from the weirdest places. Rivette even turns the constantly creaking floors and Depardieu's affected limp into material for subtle humor, filling the soundtrack with the loud thump of the general's stiff leg. Rivette undercuts the solemnity and elegance of a dress ball with the squeaking of the wooden floors, hilariously turning the dance scene into a duet between the string quartet and the cacophony of pops and scrapes. At every turn, Rivette is superficially faithful to the conventions of the costume drama, even as he does everything he can to make this assumed elegance and beauty seem shabby. It's a remarkable film from a director at the peak of his talents.
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French drama in which a handsome young general, Armand de Montriveau (Guillaume Depardieu), searches across the seas for the woman he fell madly in love with five years ago. He finally finds Antoinette (Jeanne Balibar), the Duchess of Langeais, living chastely in a Majorcan convent. It was love at first sight for Montriveau upon meeting Antoinette, a married coquette who frequented the most extravagant balls of 1820s Restoration Paris, where hypocrisy and vanity reigned. Flattered by his attentions, the alluring Antoinette orchestrated a calculating game of seduction, but repeatedly refused Montriveau. Despite his sincere romantic declarations, Montriveau's passion remains unfulfilled. When the humiliated Montriveau eventually seeks his revenge, Antoinette's love awakens. But it may well be too late for the starcrossed lovers.
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