Histoire de Marie et Julien

Sex, blackmail and clocks would be a rough description of what makes up the story of Marie and Julien. A dark but tender love story from French veteran of the Nouvelle Vague, Jacques Rivette (La Belle Noiseuse, Va Savoir), sees aimless drifter Marie (Beart) wandering back into the life of old flame Julien (Radziwilowicz) a 40-something clock repairer, who in turn is blackmailing a fake silk trafficker Madame X (Brochet). Julien asks for a huge sum of money for a letter, doll, documents and a photograph of Madame X’s that mysteriously have come into his possession.

What makes Rivette’s film intriguing is the dual nature of Julien. He is by turns cold and heartless to Madame X and warm and loving to Marie. Their romps are suitably passionate, even though at times you wonder quite what an attractive girl like Marie sees in a fusty old clockmaker like Julien.

The film just about justifies its long 150 min length because it enters a surprisingly dark dimension, in the final third, exploring a limbo world between life and death. At that point it becomes spookier and yet remains tender with echoes of The Others and Wings of Desire. For Jacques Rivette, this was a chance to resurrect an old idea and the creation of the third project in a series of “phantom films”, and it will best suit fans of Rivette’s past work or those that like darker-edged French romances.

Matt Arnoldi