Julien is a clockmaker with destructive impulses who decides to blackmail Madame X, a rich, attractive woman who traffics in stolen antiques. What he doesn’t know is that she has an even more dangerous secret that leads him to Marie, with whom he had fallen in love a year earlier.
Direction
Rivette's 150-minute dream logic, unhurried and exacting.
Acting
Béart's uncanny stillness—she's present and absent simultaneously.
Writing
The script began in 1975, abandoned, then resurrected.
Director
Jacques Rivette
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Rivette shot 30 minutes in 1975 with Leslie Caron and Albert Finney, then abandoned the project for 28 years due to exhaustion. He resurrected it with new actors but kept the original script structure intact.
Marie's condition—existing only through Julien's desire and memory—reads as Rivette's sly commentary on how French cinema traditionally consumed female stars like Béart: beautiful, enigmatic, and ultimately disposable.
No ratings yet
Sign in to join the discussion — comments are spoiler-gated to your watch progress.
Discussion starters
FR
IT
