Paris Nous Appartient [Paris Belongs to Us] *** (1961, Betty Schneider, Giani Esposito, Françoise Prévost) – Classic Movie Review 11,130

French New Wave cinema giant Jacques Rivette’s 1961 first film Paris Nous Appartient [Paris Belongs to Us] concerns the young and artistic elite who stay in deserted Paris in August, and particularly Terry Yordan (Françoise Prévost) who is romancing Gerard Lenz (Giani Esposito), the theatre director of a version of Shakespeare’s ‘Pericles’.

Betty Schneider plays Anne Goupil, a literature student in Paris in 1957, whose older brother Pierre (François Maistre) takes her to a friend’s party where the guests include American ex-pat Philip Kaufman (Daniel Crohem) and Gerard Lenz, who arrives with Terry. They talk of the apparent suicide of their Spanish activist friend Juan and suggest it was murder and Anne tries to play amateur detective.

Paris Nous Appartient boasts good characterisations, atmosphere, locations and photography, but Rivette has problems with pacing, length and texture, perhaps because he was filming sporadically over two years and often running out of money.

There are obligatory New Wave appearances of other French directors – Claude Chabrol, Jacques Demy and Jean-Luc Godard, as well as Rivette  – which may have been tricksy at the time but now add a lot of allure.

It stars Betty Schneider, Giani Esposito, Françoise Prévost, Daniel Crohem, François Maistre, Brigitte Juslin, and Jean-Claude Brialy.

It runs 141 minutes, is made by Ajym Films and Les Films du Carrosse, is released by Contemporary Films (1962) (UK), is written by Jacques Rivette and Jean Gruault, is shot in black and white by Charles L Bitsch, is produced by Roland Nonin and Claude Chabrol (co-producer) and is scored by Philippe Arthuys

Rivette’s work is very much to taste. They even advertised it as a Marmite film: ‘You Either Dig This Film Or You Don’t’.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,130

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