36 Vues Du Pic Saint Loup Official
: The circus becomes a stage where reality and artifice blur, reflecting Rivette’s lifelong obsession with the theater of human existence. Themes and Style
The film opens with a chance encounter on a country road: Kate (Jane Birkin) is stranded by her stalled car until Vittorio (Sergio Castellitto), an Italian traveler in a sports car, swoops in to restart it with a few "superfluid" taps on the engine. 36 vues du Pic Saint Loup
Jacques Rivette’s final film, 36 vues du Pic Saint-Loup (released internationally as Around a Small Mountain ), is a bittersweet encore that trades his signature sprawling runtimes for a brisk, 84-minute meditation on performance and grief . Set against the sun-drenched landscape of southern France, it serves as a "minor gem" and a summation of a legendary career in the French New Wave. The Narrative: A Circus on the Outskirts : The circus becomes a stage where reality
“A whimsical eulogy of sorts to the New Wave icon’s treasured theme of life-as-performance. Modestly scaled and terse by Rivettian standards... it is a banquet of ideas about cinema and life” Reverse Shot Set against the sun-drenched landscape of southern France,
“The film does indeed have about it an air of summation, or at least of farewell, as if it were the bittersweet encore at a closing night performance” Substack · (All (Parentheses)) Viewing Details Jacques Rivette's 36 Vues Du Pic Saint Loup - BOMB Magazine
: Reviewers at The New Yorker note that the way Rivette frames the peak against built artifacts mirrors how human identity is defined through performance within the film. Critical Perspectives