After making movies for half a century, French New Wave stalwart Jacques Rivette is entitled to an off day with “Around a Small Mountain,” an odd love story staring Jane Birkin and Sergio Castellitto.
She portrays Kate, who has returned to her family’s traveling circus after departing mysteriously many years earlier. He plays Vittorio, a vacationing Italian.
The two meet when Vittorio stops to help Kate after her car breaks down on a mountain road. He becomes intrigued with the woman and her past, and takes to hanging out with her and the other circus people.
This is no Barnum & Bailey affair. There’s not an elephant in sight, just a bunch of characters performing the same tired slapstick routines night after night in a nearly empty tent.
The cast is first-rate, as is the cinematography by Irina Lubtchansky. But the story, co-written by Rivette, is paper-thin and stagy.
If you want an introduction to the director’s work, you’re better off with “La Belle Noiseuse” (1991) and his masterpiece, “Celine and Julie Go Boating” (1974).