To the scratch of a nib and the squelch of paint, Rivette’s sonorous and newly restored drama, immerses us in the artistic process, as a battle of wills unfolds between Michel Piccoli’s aging painter and Emmanuelle Béart’s reluctant muse. Roll up your sleeves because things are getting messy.
A luminous study of her iconic mother Jane Birkin, Charlotte Gainsbourg’s directorial debut is so startlingly intimate that it feels as if we are eavesdropping on family secrets. Shedding their mythologized image, the celebrated duo mull on love and loss as they leaf through extraordinary memories.
The very last film by Jacques Rivette, the most consistently underrated of the French New Wave critics-turned-filmmakers (a group which includes François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard), Around a Small Mountain is a wry, gentle gem starring 60s icon Jane Birkin.