Duelle (une quarantaine) (1976)
Directed by Jacques Rivette

Film Review

Director Jacques Rivette followed one surreal fantasy - Céline et Julie vont en bateau (1974) - with one which is even more baffling and stylised but just as hauntingly beautiful - a kind of Cocteau-esque re-rendering of The Maltese Falcon that seems to twist and turn and collapse in on itself like an Escher drawing seen through a kaleidoscope. Duelle is among Rivette's most experimental films, a dreamlike 'gods versus mortals' contest which, despite the vague and incomplete nature of its narrative, is strangely compelling.  The film admits various interpretations and can equally be read as an individual's search for identity or as an ironic study in man's ability to assert his free will on a universe that is apparently governed by divine precepts.

For some, the film is frustratingly ambiguous; for others it is totally beguiling, the work of a film auteur at the height of his game.  Since its poor reception on its release in 1976 it has remained one of Jacques Rivette's least understood and most overlooked works.  Some familiarity with Rivette's previous and subsequent films may help us in our attempt to interpret this most enigmatic of cinematic flights of fancy, but there is something about the lyrical oddity that is Duelle which allows it to stand as a work of art in its own right.  You can't help feeling that if Rivette had made just one film, and that one film was Duelle, his oeuvre would have been complete (although the same could just as equally be said of at least half of his output).

The irony of this is that Duelle was not intended to be a standalone piece.  It was originally conceived as the second instalment in a series of four films entitled Scènes de la vie parallele.  Each of these films would have the same basic premise - two celestial beings waging a private war to become mortal - but would adopt a completely different cinematic style.  Duelle was modelled on the classic American B-movie; Noroit, its successor, was to be a pirate adventure; another was to be a love story, the fourth a musical comedy.  Unfortunately, Rivette succumbed to a nervous breakdown shortly after beginning the filming of the first film in the series (Histoire de Marie et Julien, later remade by the director in 2003) and the project was abandoned.  Duelle was met with generally poor reviews, whilst Noroit never had a release in France.  In a way, it is a good thing that Rivette was unable to complete the series as he had intended.  Duelle has a uniqueness that sets it apart from the director's other films, and to be part of a series, a mere variation on a theme, would have conceivably diminished its value.

So what on Earth is it meant to be about?  This meandering waltz through a film noir styled hall of mirrors, consisting of a series of duels - physical, psychological and emotional - between every permutation of couples drawn from the main five characters... what can it mean?  With four strong female characters each portraying various aspects of femininity it can hardly fail to be a study in the female psyche.  Every member of this clutch of femmes fatales (they all prove to be fatal, in one way or another) has a mystique and individuality that allows her to transcend the obvious movie archetype she is so clearly intended to represent.  The goddesses who are so memorably interpreted by Juliet Berto and Bulle Ogier are stylish parodies of Marlene Dietrich and whichever fedora-wearing male star from a 1940s film noir you care to mention.  It's Rivette's idea of a joke: gods who crave mortality arrive on Earth in the guise of movie stars that have acquired immortality.  The mortals, by contrast, are down-to-earth working girls who fit the bill of two other noir stereotypes: the hotel receptionist who becomes an amateur sleuth (Hermine Karagheuz) and the dancehall ticket girl who aspires to a better life (Nicole Garcia).  Once the characters begin to interact and attempt to out-manoeuvre each other (in true noir fashion), this is when the stereotypical shackles begin to drop away and they emerge as real beings.  They are like waxworks that suddenly come alive and acquire an individual identity, an identity that is not static but changes depending on who else is in the room.

The one male character who gets drawn into this weird game of deceit and subterfuge, Pierrot, is the one who appears to be the most versatile.  He doesn't just change his mannerisms, he actually looks physically different and adopts a completely different persona with each of the four women, changing his behaviour according to which guise these fascinating examples of womanhood decides to adopt.  The title Duelle suggests the film is about confrontation between opposites, with destructive connotations.  In fact what it actually depicts is a peculiar form of symbiosis - individuals acquiring an identity, and hence a meaningful reality, through their interaction with others.  It's an interesting philosophical point: is it possible to have an identity in the absence of other people?  With no point of reference, no one to compare ourselves with, does identity even have any meaning?  If Duelle tells us anything it is that we can only exist in relation to others.  Without the constant, never-ending barrage of duels that make up our life we are nothing - we become the solitary pianist (Jean Wiener) who is glimpsed in the background intermittently throughout the film, a ghost hammering out tunes that mean nothing to anyone.

Film Synopsis

In modern day Paris, Leni, the Queen of the Night, and Viva, the Queen of the Sun, are locked in a private battle for possession of a diamond that has magical powers.  Whichever of the goddesses acquires this jewel will become a mortal, permitted to stay on Earth beyond the forty days of winter which are granted her.  But if any mortal should find the diamond, it will confer on him the prize of everlasting life.  Leni begins her quest disguised as an aristocratic woman.  She accosts a hotel receptionist, Lucie, and asks the whereabouts of a man she once knew, someone called Max Christie.  Lucie suggests she should ask the ticket girl Elsa at a dancehall which Max frequented a year ago.  Meanwhile, Viva pays a visit to a gambling joint where she encounters Lucie's older brother Pierrot.  It just so happens that Pierrot has in his possession the precious diamond, and he has no intention of yielding it to either of the goddesses...