An old master picks up the pace. By BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM.

The Duchess of Langeais (Don’t Touch the Axe) is much more accessible Rivette, which isn’t necessarily as bad as it sounds. His adaptation of a Balzac novella has a simple set-up: man pursues woman, she rejects him and then decides to pursue him. It’s also a theatrical script, the largely interior visuals (with the exception of the film’s bookends) and intimate mise-en-scčne forcing the two lead actors to carry the film. And they do superbly. This is a film with a rare intensity in the acting – particularly Jeanne Balibar as the seductive, vulnerable Antoinette – and the two leads compellingly draw you into their little game of deception, love and psychological warfare.

The film takes a ruthless view of love. Love is but an obsession, a tool of ownership and possession, nothing more. Social hierarchies and codes of conduct govern the formation of love too, to an often stultifying effect. The power-play and cynical romance of the two – one an awkward socially unaware suitor (Guillaume Depardieu), the other a world-weary but confident canary – unfurl with unnerving results. Rivette films these power struggles through glances, facial expressions and uneasy cutting. The chiaroscuro lighting and opulent sets add an intimate feel to the intimacies on display, and in a way that would no doubt have impressed Balzac, the effect heightens the emotions that gurgle underneath the carefully composed exteriors. It’s a film composed primarily of conversations, walking (Depardieu’s gait is particularly memorable), entrances and exits – a highly theatrical feel which no doubt gives the actors space. It’s as if this film is one giant tease too (the subtle use of Michel Piccoli and Bulle Ogier can be seen as a sly intertextual reference back to the chamber-teases that are Belle de Jour/Belle Toujours).

Of course it wouldn’t be Rivette if there weren’t a few self-reflexive moments too, and the constant references to music, poetry and art all challenge the nature of the medium. The frequent use of intertitles add to the artificiality of the proceedings – and emphasise the links back to Balzac. This isn’t Rivette’s first reference back to Balzac; La Belle Noiseuse was based on Balzac’s “The Unknown Masterpiece”. The Duchess of Langeais is a mischievous film underneath all its intensity – a film that I’d have passed off as lesser Rivette if it hadn’t brooded with me for days afterwards. Even when he moves at a faster pace, the old master knows what he’s doing.