Integrating the filmmaker’s familiar elements of whimsical, quixotic adventure (Celine and Julie Go Boating), integrated – but unresolved – conspiracy (Gang of Four, Secret Defense, and The Story of Marie and Julien), and liberated bohemianism (La Belle noiseuse, La Religeuse), Le Pont du Nord is an effervescent, ingeniously constructed, and infectiously affectionate paean to the city of Paris. From Baptiste’s (Pascale Ogier) hopeful sentiment of arrival after encircling the statue of the Belfort lion in Denfert-Rochereau (a symbol of French Resistance against the Germans) that is reflected in Marie’s (Bulle Ogier) literal awakening at a random intersection, Jacques Rivette juxtaposes the theme of rebirth against images of Paris in perpetual state of demolition and construction (a state of constant flux and transition that is similarly captured in Jean-Luc Godard’s Two or Three Things I Know About Her) that mirrors Marie’s own existential state after being released from prison and an unresolved past of radicalism. Rivette further uses the recurring image of spirals – the serpentine form of a sculptured dragon, the weaving of spider webs (that also reinforces the deceptive, “non-mystery” quality to the film), the characters’ labyrinthine pursuit of the contents of a mysterious briefcase carried by Marie’s former lover, Julien (Pierre Clémenti), the district map of Paris (that Marie observes to resemble a children’s board game) – to illustrate, not only the inextricability of destiny, but also the inherent impossibility of starting over. Set against a shifting and increasingly alien cityscape that, nevertheless, embodies a deeply rooted, cumulative cultural history of resistance and revolution, the film dispels the myth of tabula rasa – a metaphor for a generation’s defeated idealism following the May 68 protests – that seeks to propel modernization and progress through flight and ideological amnesia. Nevertheless, Rivette retains the lyrical tone amid the seeming weight of human tragedy through Le Pont du Nord‘s indelible film-within-a-film epilogue that, like the parting shot in Abbas Kiarostami’s subsequent film A Taste of Cherry, serves as a thoughtful document of transience, an affirmation of mundane ritual, and a subtle appreciation of the here and now.
© Acquarello 2005. All rights reserved.