Jacques Rivette

 

Bio:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Rivette

Le Coup du berger (1956)

When an unfaithful wife receives a fur coat from her lover as a gift, they must figure out a way to keep the husband from discovering the coat's true origins.

Charmingly made short that illustrates an amusing, but quite chauvinistic, anecdote; interesting as an early work by Jacques Rivette.

Paris nous appartient (1961)

Curious as to why a young Spaniard would take his own life, a young student visits many of the places frequented by the dead man and learns that the suicide victim was maybe part of a sinister international conspiracy.

Less a mystery than a meandering and hypnotizing (and quite long) investigation into the paranoic and almost ridiculuously apocalyptic mindset of Parisian intellectuals of that time.

On renewed viewing: I still agree with my first assessment, and it truly is overlong.

Halliwell (no star): "Overlong, often pretentious and frequently amateurish, Rivette's first feature reflects an adolescent despair of the future."