Event

Around A Small Mountain

(Jacques Rivette, France/Italy, 2009, 35mm, 84 min) The French New Wave titan (and subject of our 2007 retrospective) Jacques Rivette is back with this winning depiction of a chance encounter on a mountain road. Vittorio (Sergio Castellitto) is compelled to tag along with Kate (Jane Birkin) as she returns to the circus community she left years ago.

On full display within this enigmatic tale is the filmmaker's love of improvisation and the theater. Melancholia, felt here through the grief and guilt that carries Kate so far from her performing days and casts a spell over the story. Rivette regular Birkin is mesmerizing as a woman used to closing herself off who awakens slowly to life's possibilities. The film is also full of humor, mystery and subtle romance, with a valedictory tone. If this is, indeed, the eighty-two-year-old director's swan song, he exits at the top of his game.

"A gorgeous, melancholy miniature." Time Out London