Don't Touch The Axe

Rivette is 79 but still a pioneer of the nouvelle vague. Here he adapts a Balzac novella set in the early nineteenth century. It's a 'subtle and beautifully mounted' (Philip French, The Observer) account of the pursuit by a nobleman of a married woman, who has hidden from his obsessive pursuit in a Mallorca convent. She is played by a vibrant Jeanne Balibar, opposite Gérard Depardieu's lookalike son Guillaume, and who here is the pursuer and who the pursued? The film’s languid camerawork and careful directorial distance make for a treat.

Thanks to Artificial Eye