L'Amour fou (Rivette, 1969): ICA Cinema, 1pm
A classic of the French New Wave and one of Rivette’s most radical works, L’amour fou was unavailable for years, with the original elements tragically burned in a fire. Now meticulously restored, the ICA, in partnership with Radiance Films, is presents the UK Premiere of this new restoration ahead of Radiance Films Blu-Ray release in April.
Chicago Reader review:
Rightly described by Dave Kehr as Jacques Rivette’s “breakthrough film,
the first of his features to employ extreme length (252 minutes), a high
degree of improvisation, and a formal contrast between film and
theater,” this rarely screened 1968 masterpiece is one of the great
French films of its era. It centers on rehearsals for a production of
Racine’s Andromaque and the doomed yet passionate relationship between
the director (Jean-Pierre Kalfon) and his actress wife (Bulle Ogier, in
her finest performance), who leaves the production at the start of the
film and then festers in paranoid isolation. The rehearsals, filmed by
Rivette (in 35-millimeter) and TV documentarist Andre S. Labarthe (in
16), are real, and the relationship between Kalfon and Ogier is
fictional, but this only begins to describe the powerful interfacing of
life and art that takes place over the film’s hypnotic, epic unfolding;
watching this is a life experience as much as a film experience.
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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