369 Ratings

Noroît

France, 1976

Drama, Fantasy

Synopsis

On an island beach, Morag weeps over the corpse of her brother Shane and vows to avenge his death. Shane was killed by Giulia, the leader of a band of pirates that inhabit the island’s castle. Morag enlists Erika to spy on the pirates and she is gets a job as Giulia’s as a bodyguard…

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Noroît Directed by Jacques Rivette

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Awards & Festivals

Locarno International Film Festival

1980

Viennale

2002

2016

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Cast & Crew

Critics reviews

There’s only the vaguest sense, until the film approaches its surreal finale, that the requisite pair of mortal enemies, Morag (Geraldine Chaplin) and Giulia (Bernadette Lafont), possess anything more than human abilities. Even then, their final confrontation comes across more like a modern dance recital than a magical melee, which Rivette renders even more bizarre by alternating between monochrome film stock and harsh red filters.

Budd Wilkins

June 14, 2017

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Film Comment

It’s perhaps Rivette’s most frightening film, but also the one in which the choreography of bodies within the frame does the most to conjure a film-drunk world where the lightness of fiction clashes with the weight of real madness.

Dan Sullivan

November 30, 2016

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[Norôit] is easier to follow [than Duelle], more spectacular in terms of its locations (a 12th-century fortress on the Brittany coast and a reconstructed 17th-century chateau), and considerably more outlandish — and therefore more difficult - in its emotional tone and affect. Properly speaking, it belongs to no recognizable era or film genre; the female pirates could be 17th, 18th-, or 19th-century characters…

Jonathan Rosenbaum

February 28, 1992

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What are people saying?

El Biffo's rating of the film Noroît
El Biffo

Rivette was so cool. Even though I don't exactly understand why they all kill each other I guess because they are all fighting over the pirate treasure? I love how the violence is all very obviously fake like in a stage play, not like a modern movie where they make it look like realistically horrifying murder.
January 24, 2019 18:30
- 6
- 5
EdieEmm's rating of the film Noroît
EdieEmm

Initially absorbing, in the way the worlds we used to make up as kids were absorbing; with their rules that emanated from an internal logic that we all just inherently understood; that were fun, but somehow also strangely serious, and time passed unnoticed... Now I notice. After an hour, despite Rivette's vision, the great diegetic music, the sets, my 4 stars started falling... 2.5, up from 2, for the brilliant end.
September 13, 2016 15:24
- 1
- 0
Michael H. CLAES's rating of the film Noroît
Michael H. CLAES

RIVETTE, polygame cinématographe, marionnettiste des femmes, aime les coller ensemble, les faire s'affronter, se rapprocher. Butinant de femme en femme, ce film long & lent est 1 mille-feuille, 1 sabayon doux, parfois écoeurant. = RIVETTE, polygamous puppeteer of women, likes filming them close to each other. A long & slow movie like a layer cake, at times indigest. Bernadette LAFONT, Geraldine CHAPLIN, Kika MARKHAM.
January 24, 2019 18:30
- 3
- 0
Jason's rating of the film Noroît
Jason

Another Rivette born of and engaged w/ play. Play worlds. In fact, his ongoing interests in theatre and conspiracy become concerns w/ domains of play. Here we have something almost completely abstracted. The actors are taken far away from civilization and made to enact a theatre of deconstructed Jacobean revenge tragedy. A film about counterculture. Rivette may be the counterculture's most sly master of ceremonies.
January 24, 2019 18:29
- 4
- 0
Jesse Furgurson's rating of the film Noroît
Jesse Furgurson

Creepy, sexy, mesmeric. Sorta impenetrable, too, but who cares about that when a movie makes people move like this?
July 16, 2013 03:29
- 4
- 0
Lynch/Fellini's rating of the film Noroît
Lynch/Fellini

Jacques Rivette is eternally the most rigorous member of the Cashiers du Cinema filmmaker in the Nouvelle Vague. While Noroît is not his most challenging, it may be his most experimental, especially towards the end when the cinematography shifts formats and color pallets.
April 08, 2018 04:52
- 0
- 0
F.Bieberkopf's rating of the film Noroît
F.Bieberkopf

The Ruizian Rivette.
September 14, 2014 10:05
- 7
- 0
Dan and Val Freeman's rating of the film Noroît
Dan and Val Freeman

Just what I want from French new wave - long winded and bonkers! So many ideas ... like an open air theatre version of The Tempest with performance art, musicians playing in the scenes and feminist pirates running amok. Nothing like it.
September 12, 2016 23:59
- 1
- 0