NOTE: This film is not available on DVD.
A woman avenges the death of her brother by infiltrating the band of pirates who killed him.
Critic-turned-director Jacques Rivette is one of the founding fathers of the French New Wave in the late 1950's. His experiments with narrative form and duration have limited access to his works, and prevented him from achieving the international popularity of contemporaries Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut.
After the success of his comic fantasy Celine and Julie Go Boating, Rivette embarked on the most ambitious project of his career, a four-film series called Scenes From A Parallel Life, which would chart the battles between goddesses of the sun and moon across stories from different genres. The first completed was the film noir-homage Duelle, and the second the pirate adventure Noroît (translated as "Northwest Wind").
The story pays tribute to the bloody, satirical Jacobean dramas of the 17th century, particularly The Revenger's Tragedy, a famous work from the period that is repeatedly quoted (in English) throughout the film, including a play-within-a-play sequence that recalls a similar scene in Shakespeare's Hamlet.
Rivette's post-modern flourishes in the film include a blending of time periods via the props and fashion, stylized acting driven primarily by body language, the on-camera presence of improvising jazz musicians who symbiotically complement and inspire the actors, and experimental dance standing in for a climactic sword battle.
The film was shot on location in Brittany on the northwest coast of France, featuring buildings from both the 12th and 15th century. The cast includes Geraldine Chapin (Robert Altman's Nashville, Almodovar's Talk To Her) and Bernadette Lafont (Rivette's Out 1, many Chabrol films).
Due to the public reception of the mismarketed Duelle, Noroît never received a theatrical release in France, and has rarely been screened in English-speaking countries. Regardless, Rivette scholars consider it one of his most innovative and mesmerizing works.
Running time is approximately 2 hrs.
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