Merry-Go-Round

Due to Schneider and because it feels like a sprawling travelogue (even though it really isn't one), it feels inevitable to compare this to Antonioni's The Passenger, but it reminded me even more of a looser, more spontaneous variation on Wenders' '70s road movies. However unlike those films, the freer style prevents any lapses into ponderousness, so here the 150 minutes move by fairly quickly. That said, i could have easily done without all of the fantasy/dream sequences.

My third Rivette feature; this one is somewhat reminiscent of Celine & Julie Go Boating in terms of story, but unlike that 1974 film, here the postmodern elements are rather restrained, and the actors seem to play it straight. I think in the end the movie is about the characters' inability to ever really know each other.

In many ways this is a failed experiment. Rivette says it best: "...it really is a film with a first half-hour that's quite coherent, and then it searches for itself three times, three times searches for a way out...". But in searching for itself, the film generate moments that open up new possibilities for cinema as nonlinear and multilayered story telling, with the viewer untethered from the cinematic tropes and techniques that dull us. It's liberating, but liberation is not easy to embrace.

"Mysterious" would be a nice way of describing this somewhat slow, confusing movie. Despite feeling lost and a bit frustrated, I recognize this movie as being up my alley.

I need to stay away from Rivette's more experimental work.

Works much better than it should. Wonderful direction, but the "dream" sequences are quite draining.