haut bas fragileUP/DOWN/FRAGILE (1995)
haut bas fragile
The most recent feature film by Jacques
Rivette one of the masters of the legendary French "New
Wave". Rivette ever since the epic 12 hour and 40 minute "OUT
ONE" (1970) has continued to explore the effect of extended duration
on film narrative. UP/DOWN/FRAGILE comes in at a lean two hours and 49 minutes
but continues to explore some of the same territory as Rivette's earlier
work but this time within the conventions of the 1950's Hollywood musical.
The actors are again responsible for their own dialogue and a plot which
revolves around the behind the scenes life of a theater set designer and
a mystery. By chance the lives of three beautiful young women are changed
and connected.
SYNOPSIS:
Three beautiful young women dance and romance
their way through the enchanted sun-drenched streets cafes and gardens of
Paris in the summertime. Lousie (Marianne Denicourt) recently released from
a hospital after a five year coma learns she has received a house in Paris
from her Grandmother. Roland (Andre Marcon) a set designer offers to buy
some of the furnishings. Ninon (Nathalie Richard) fleeing from a murder
and a trashy boyfriend becomes a friend of Louise and falls in love with
Roland. Ida, (Laurence Cote) works in a library and searches for her birth
mother ... and the lyrics to a song she remembers as a child. Rivette effortlessly
brings the lives of these characters together in a manner that does not
seem contrived but relaxed and fateful. Bursting with life , song and dance
UP/DOWN/FRAGILE shows how older forms of narrative can be reinvented and
still work a little romance and magic in the summertime
REVIEWS:
Salon Magazine's Charles Taylor. "That approach is perfect for "Haut/bas/fragile" because the movie is about the impossibility of taking responsibility for anyone's life other than your own."
If they have changed the page you can read it here.
.JONATHAN ROSENBAUM. Chicago Reader
"One of the ten best films of 1995" FOUR STARS. You can read this entire review at http://www.chireader.com/movies/archives/0796/07266.html
MICHAEL WILMINGTON . Chicago Tribune
"Creating the illusion of unfolding life, while at the same time bowing secretly to old movie conventions, is no easy trick...But, I loved the way Rivette's camera followed his actors, drifting along catching them all in one frame never intruding. ..a picture as strange, likeable and full of ups and downs as a brilliantly wasted afternoon, as fragile and lovely as a pop tune heard on a distant radio."
KEVIN THOMAS. Los Angeles Times
"...Rivette also richly rewards the demands he places on his viewers, and that is most definitely the case here."