''A newly-released convict and a knife-wielding wild child embark on adventure across Paris with the aid of a strange city map as their guide.
Jacques Rivette is one of the film critics-turned-directors who started the French New Wave movement in the late 1950's. While not as well-known as compatriots François Truffaut or Jean-Luc Godard (mainly due to the long length of many of his works), he was instrumental in the critical re-evaluation of many important Hollywood filmmakers, as well as his own experimentations with narrative form, arguably making his enigmatic filmography the most rewarding among cinephiles. Critic David Thomson called his 1974 film Céline and Julie Go Boating "The most innovative film since Citizen Kane."
Le Pont du Nord (North Bridge) stars real-life mother and daughter Bulle Ogier and Pascale Ogier, the former marking her fifth appearance for the director. Like the earlier film Céline and Julie, the actresses created their own characters and collaborated with Rivette and his fellow scenarist on the screenplay.
The entire film was shot outside on the streets of Paris (by veteran cinematographer William Lubtchansky). With the exception of a scene at the Eiffel Tower, he locations and neighborhoods seen are less-familiar to foreign audiences, highlighting the urban blight/industrial areas of the city. The choice of setting is in part a reaction to what Rivette and his associates saw as the too-rapid modernization of Paris ushered in by then-President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.
Despite this socio-political commentary, this is one of Rivette's more playful films, with common tropes of the director interwoven throughout, such as conspiracy theories, puzzles and games, powerful and central female characters, and glimpses of the supernatural in the real world. Also found is a deconstruction of familiar genre and narrative conventions.
Running time is approximately 2 hours.
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