A little doodle by Jacques Rivette to do with a capricious Italian tagalong (Sergio Castellitto) of a French travelling circus and in particular of a haunted older woman in the troupe (Jane Birkin, looking like turning into Mick Jagger). If only because it clocks in at under an hour and a half, this is an uncharacteristic film from a man who not uncommonly expands to three or four hours (La Belle Noiseuse, L’Amour Fou, Celine and Julie Go Boating, etc.) and who tops out at thirteen (Out One). It is helpful to have him in such a compact form, just as it’s helpful, if you have a hankering for some Dickens, to have the option of the Christmas books when you haven’t the time for Bleak House. And Rivette’s aloof, academic, Attic manner — brain-heavy, scientifically detached, classically framed, averse to closeups, drawn to backdrops, mulish in gait, unafraid of dullness and obscurity — is done no disservice by cutting it short. The likelihood of getting all the way to the end will be markedly improved. (2009) — Duncan Shepherd
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