LOVE ON THE GROUND (1984) ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: Jacques Rivette
Jane Birkin, Geraldine Chaplin, André Dussollier,
Jean-Pierre Kalfon, Isabelle Linnartz, Laszlo Szabo
Birkin and Chaplin play actresses cast in a play for which an ending does not yet exist. They've got one week to rehearse at the playwright's cavernous house in the country, while he tries to figure out a way to wrap up the last act. The performance will be Saturday night. The director's cut runs just under three hours, which is twice as long as it probably needs to be, but there's some shifty stuff going on in it, with what's real, what's imagined and what's being acted out reflecting, anticipating and bumping into each other. The scene where Jane spills the contents of her handbag on the floor of a Metro car duplicates an actual incident on an airline flight, which inspired the creation of a high-end fashion accessory called the Birkin bag.
