Merry-Go-Round

I didn't even know Jacques Rivette's name before a retrospective for him started at this year's Viennale. Now I heard a lot about Rivette from the media, and I managed to see one film - and I'm really sorry for not being able to see another one!

This movie, Merry-Go-Round, was a great pleasure for me to watch because, against all odds, it turned out to be - a crime film! A crime film though, that formally switched between extreme realism (Rivette seams to be famous for letting the actors improvise a lot) and absurd postmodernism - but, after all, a fine story about criminals. Only that the criminals were not typical gangsters: a young American (played by an Italian but as he did it convincingly, I accept it) and the child-like and wild and very sexy Maia Schneider. And many more. Oh, and two po-faced musicians who perform the soundtrack of the movie before our eyes, live, so to say.

And above all, this movie was very funny - you wouldn't expect such a funny film from a filmmaker who is weird enough to make a motion picture that has a running time of 13 hours.

I should mention that the girl with whom I saw the movie had a head-ache afterwards. So, be careful.

Elizabeth sends telegrams to her old boyfriend Ben in New York City and to her younger sister Leo in Rome to join her in Paris, where she is selling her dead father's estate. When Ben and Leo arrive, a mysterious adventure begins.

What is the "mysterious adventure"? No one knows for sure. The film is somewhat surreal, with a blend of French and English, and the occasional group of jazz musicians thrown in for no apparent reason other than to add something artsy to this art film.

Star Maria Schneider became famous for portraying Jeanne opposite Marlon Brando in Bernardo Bertolucci's "Last Tango in Paris" (1972); and the Girl in Michelangelo Antonioni's "The Passenger" (1975), opposite Jack Nicholson. So, depending on how you look at it, she was coming off some big successes, or on her way out. She is playing opposite Joe Dallesandro, who may be a major cult figure (given his connections to Warhol, the Rolling Stones and Lou Reed) but is not a household name.

This one is mainly for Rivette completists. There are gaps in the plot and a lack of commitment on the part of some actors, notably Schneider which ensure that this film will not be counted among Rivette's greatest. I watched it on YouTube as part of my review of his works following the news of his death. The story is not weak--it's an amalgam of film noir and road movie--but the way it is told, in a slap dash manner leaving too much up to chance, disappointed me.

The great pleasure in Merry-go-round is provided by John Surman's mournful noodlings on bass clarinet, which often seem more interesting than what the actors are doing. Joe Dallesandro exercised a fascination on more than one filmmaker (I remember how Louis Malle used him in Black Moon, and his films with Andy Warhol are still around) and he does here too. His mad chase through the woods pursued by a knight in armor recalls the fight scene in Black Moon.

i really like surreal films, but also i don't understand most of them. i never understood the sense of the breakscenes in the forest/sand. the whole film seems to move in slow motion, it seems like the air would be water. you have to wonder the whole time: "what is this film about". unfortunately it was shown in german tv at 2:00 at night and i think it will never be shown there again, but i can only say: "watch it, if you can! - and than tell me what it is about!"