Loup — 36 Vues Du Pic Saint

“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

: Vittorio, intrigued by Kate’s aloof melancholy, follows her and slowly embeds himself in the troupe’s daily life to uncover her secrets.

: Unlike Rivette's four-hour epics like La Belle Noiseuse , this film is "sedately whimsical" and flows effortlessly from scene to scene. 36 vues du Pic Saint Loup

: Kate is returning to her family’s small, struggling traveling circus—a world she abandoned years ago following a tragic accident.

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. “A whimsical eulogy of sorts to the New

: The circus becomes a stage where reality and artifice blur, reflecting Rivette’s lifelong obsession with the theater of human existence. Themes and Style

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 : Unlike Rivette's four-hour epics like La Belle

: 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