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August Boston Viewfinder Pick: Le Pont du Nord

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The Harvard Film Archive offers a welcome Gallic counter-melody to its Hitchcock-heavy August with five showings of Jacques Rivette’s Le Pont du Nord (1981) in a new 35mm print. The outer rings of Paris host this characteristically puzzling narrative intersecting two women—a former 60s radical just out of prison and a young punk (played by mother and daughter Bullie and Pascale Ogier). A colleague points out that the key to it all might be that there is no bridge in Paris called Pont du Nord. Shot in 16mm by William Lubtschansky (responsible for a disproportionate number of the most beautiful post-New Wave French films), the film conjures verging tension and psychogeographic textures for pennies on the dime. As ever with Rivette, the underlying notes of post-’68 paranoia and disillusionment are delivered with a palpable sense of discovery. Le Pont du Nord didn’t receive a theatrical release in the States the first time around, so don’t miss your chance. – Max Goldberg

 

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Uncategorized

August Boston Viewfinder Pick: Le Pont du Nord

by

The Harvard Film Archive offers a welcome Gallic counter-melody to its Hitchcock-heavy August with five showings of Jacques Rivette’s Le Pont du Nord (1981) in a new 35mm print. The outer rings of Paris host this characteristically puzzling narrative intersecting two women—a former 60s radical just out of prison and a young punk (played by mother and daughter Bullie and Pascale Ogier). A colleague points out that the key to it all might be that there is no bridge in Paris called Pont du Nord. Shot in 16mm by William Lubtschansky (responsible for a disproportionate number of the most beautiful post-New Wave French films), the film conjures verging tension and psychogeographic textures for pennies on the dime. As ever with Rivette, the underlying notes of post-’68 paranoia and disillusionment are delivered with a palpable sense of discovery. Le Pont du Nord didn’t receive a theatrical release in the States the first time around, so don’t miss your chance. – Max Goldberg

 

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Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

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