The Story of Marie and Julien (2003)

Original title

Histoire de Marie et Julien

Directed by

Jacques Rivette

Genre

drama film, romance film, ghost film

Country

France, Italy

Runtime

2h 30m

Rated

U

Rating

6.3 of 10 from 26 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A man tries to blackmail a woman but falls into a strange and tender love affair with her. The story shifts from a tense drama into a supernatural romance where past secrets blur the line between life and death.

slow-burndarktendermysteriousmelancholicdreamlikeunsettlingromantic

What happens

The Story Of Marie And Julien (French: Histoire De Marie Et Julien) is a 2003 French supernatural romantic psychological drama film co-written and directed by Jacques Rivette. The film slowly develops from a drama about blackmail into a dark, yet tender, supernatural love story between Marie and Julien, played by French actress Emmanuelle Béart and Polish actor Jerzy Radziwiłowicz. Anne Brochet plays the blackmailed Madame X. Béart had previously worked with Rivette in La Belle Noiseuse, as had Radziwiłowicz in Secret Defense. The film was shot by William Lubtchansky, and edited by Nicole Lubtchansky, both frequent collaborators of Rivette's. The film was originally going to be made in 1975 as part of a series of four films, but shooting was abandoned after two days, only to be revisited by Rivette 27 years later. It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2003 and had a cinema release in France, Belgium and the UK. It was shown in competition at the San Sebastian International Film Festival and was nominated for the Prix Louis-Delluc. Some critics found the film tedious, long, and pretentious, while others maintained that it was moving, intelligent and profound putting it among Rivette's best work. The film was frequently compared to other supernatural thrillers, among them The Sixth Sense (1999), and The Others (2001) and to the Hitchcock film, Vertigo (1958). Despite its detractors, many critics, scholars and cinephiles often list it among the finest movies of 2003, from the 2000s and of the 21st century. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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