Jacques Rivette was always the most demanding of the French New Wave directors, wasn't he? Éric Rohmer's languid reflections on youthful ennui might come close, but Rivette takes the cake. Consider his film Paris Belongs to Us: it's like a tone poem with a plot-like disposition. The characters spend the run-time wondering around Paris, looking for answers, looking for purpose. A constant modernist musical score adds an eerie atmosphere of dread to the proceedings. Though the film might have an actual story involving intrigue and plot twists, by the end it becomes almost entirely disjointed. When the various threads of the central conspiracy theory come together, one can't help but sit there in confused silence and blink. But as an aesthetic experience, it's fascinating albeit occasionally tedious.
7/10
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