70
Rivette is teasing his way, thinking afresh, playing a game but tweaking its rules, telling a story, but only sort of--making, in short, not simply a movie, but that ineffable magic called cinema.
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What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
70
New York Magazine (Vulture) by David Edelstein
Rivette has aged into one of cinema’s most ingenious minimalists. In The Duchess of Langeais he uses intertitles--bits of literary exposition--with cheeky understatement.
100
The first masterpiece of 2008 -- at least by American release date standards -- the latest film from master French director Jacques Rivette is a masterful, multilayered, sometimes enigmatic work of dark irony, an assured tragicomedy of manners and more.
63
Rivette brings a refreshing realism to what could have been a stodgy costume drama, it's still pretty slow going.
38
Jacques Rivette's film is full of painstaking historical detail, but the behavior of the two nonlovers is mired in inaction and emotionally incomprehensible.
100
The New York Times by Manohla Dargis
Duchess of Langeais seems to me a nearly impeccable work of art -- beautiful, true, profound.
83
Though not exactly a "comedy" of manners, since it's more melancholy than funny, The Duchess Of Langeais is very much concerned with how the rules of social etiquette interfere with raw human need.
83
Entertainment Weekly by Owen Gleiberman
A highbrow chick flick that made me feel older, in a good way.
70
The picture has an unsettling, haunting quality that I haven't been able to shake.