Mad Love

One of the most radical New Wave experiment returns to the screens in a new 4K restoration. Rivette’s legendary film is a four-hour-long intimate saga which tells the story of a deepening marital crisis between actor Claire (Bulle Ogier’s phenomenal debut) and theatre director Sébastien (Jean-Pierre Kalfon). When she decides not to  appear in the staging of Andromaque he is directing, the alienation grows even deeper and artists who were close to each other start growing apart. The master of extended observation draws authentic emotion from the actors, which results in performances that cannot be compared to anything else in French cinema of the late sixties. What’s more, we become part of a formal experiment: footage shot on 35mm is mixed with footage shot on 16mm by a crew which registers theatre rehearsals. The interpenetration of life and art has never been so bitter and intense.

Sebastian Smoliński

Jacques Rivette (1928-2016), a French director and a key member of the Nouvelle Vague, was somewhat in the shadow of his more renowned colleagues: Godard, Rohmer, Chabrol and Truffaut. He was born in Rouen, France, and began writing for Cahiers du cinéma in the 1950s. In 1961 he directed his first feature film, Paris Belongs to Us. His filmography also includes The Nun (1966), Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974) and La Belle Noiseuse (1991).

4K restoration from 2023.