"Le pont du nord" is an overlong but enticing adventure of two women wandering on the familiar-looking streets of Paris, which within the film's internal logic, amount to a fantasyland. Though improvised, picture boasts strong continuity and a fresh unpredictability which should grab and hold the attention of arthouse audiences while, in common with most of director Jacques Rivette's previous games-playing films, eluding the grasp of general fans.
Bulle Ogier toplines as Marie, a newly-released convicted bank robber with vague terrorist background (resembling her role in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 1979 "The Third Generation"). She bumps into Baptiste (Pasale Ogier), a strange young girl who attaches herself to Marie in rather aimless strolling around the French capital. Duo become involved with gangsters Julien (PIerre Clementi) has a briefcase containing a strange map of the city and files on political scandals. A mysterious figure whom Baptiste names Max (Jean-Francois Stevenin) also tails the duo.
Using excellent sound recording to create atmosphere, Rivette unfolds his spare narrative very slowly, finally emphasizing Marie's futile attempts to make sense of her (and Baptiste's) predicament by imagining a large-scale board game (according to the strange map) in which various areas are traps and which offers both danger and potential prizes to them as players. Her overactive imagination combines with Baptiste's paranoia and violent behavior to create tragic results when it turns out the gangsters are not playing games.
Bulle Ogier gives a riveting performance as a woman trying to escape her past and start fresh. Pascale Ogier (her real-life daughter) has a showy first starring role in features here, but her deadpan expression combined with physical volatility becomes dull through repetition and Rivette's unwillingness to condense his material. Her paranoia, imagining spies monitoring everyone and her violent attacking of eyes on posters which seem to be staring at her is a strong motif, which Rivette reinforces with the sound of whirring helicopters overhead and eerie surveillance camera footage at film's end.
Shooting entirely on exteriors, Rivette manages to inject a bit of explicit fantasy via a fire-breathing dragon, guarding the North Bridge, which Baptiste manages to quell with a "Tin Drum" style piercing scream. William Lubtchansky's 16mm visuals have been blown up to 35mm effectively.
Of all the critically-acclaimed directors of the French Nouvelle Vague (including Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut, Louis Malle, Claude Chabrol and Alain Resnais), Rivette has never received the approval of the general public. "Le Pont du Nord" will please his relatively small following but remains too private and obscure to win new converts.
My review was written in October 1981 at the New York Film Festival.
