Famed painter Edouard Frenhofer (Michel Piccoli) has been living in quiet secluded retirement with his model wife Liz (Jane Birkin) on a large country estate. They are visited by Marianne (Emmanuelle Béart), her artist boyfriend Nicolas, and an art dealer. Frenhofer is taken with the beautiful Marianne. She inspires him to restart his abandoned La Belle Noiseuse painting with the young nude model in long sessions.The plot is simple. The characterization is compelling but the movie is slow and it is extremely long. It is four freaking hours. This is more about the act of creating. Despite the extended scenes, the drawing process is quite riveting even when Béart isn't naked. There is a hypnotic feel watching him create something on the blank page. The movie is too long for most audiences. Painting may be fascinating but it's not worth sitting for four hours straight.

You've heard the expression about as exciting as watching paint dry. With this version of Rivette's glum excursion into an artists blockage, the viewer has 236 minutes to watch the paint dry--and often watch the sketching, which is dull, indeed. Four glum people sit in beautiful surroundings in what appears to be a summer mansion, and either don't say much to one another, or complain about lack of feeling. While its obvious the filmmaker is sincere in attempting to explore the development of human character through interaction and decision making, Rivette also neglected to remember what I think is a cardinal rule of motion pictures--they move! I can recognize some folks will become entranced by the dedicated portrayals of talented actors, and also understand while folks will be driven out of the room by the sullen inactivity--how many ways can one woman pose for a painting in one day without anything apparently happening? Id like to see the two-hour version of the film, which might be a little more riveting

Now how more obvious can it be? This movie … 236 minutes … is classic Emperor's new clothes material. (Classic,because there actually are no clothes…)I can't believe people are cowards when they are afraid they might be exposed as idiots when they don't understand something that is actually pretentious horse manure.This movie should have been called Captain Crayon and Lieutenant U-Whora. Just for the fun of it they should have changed roles and she starts drawing his ancient, decrepit body for 3 hours 45 minutes of the 4 hours. Or miss an arm. Or turning out to be a hermaphrodite 2 hours into the movie. Just to annoy the voyeurs. THEN I would believe the "Arts" argument.This is no better than "Showgirls" or that "Striptease". Just something for people too ashamed to buy porn.Let's summarize the plot of this - an annoying stuttering, mumbling painter (played by Michel Piccoli, who has seen better days in his acting career) discovers through the help of a young naked lady that he DOES want to draw naked women after being turned off having to use his (obviously jealous) wife for too long. Duh! No: Double-Duh! Bottom Line of this Movie: "Don't paint your wife" (Spoiler alert) – it took them 4 HOURS for that …? Eeuww…what a gross piece of self importance.So this is a movie about "the artistic process"? Gee-whizz that it should include a naked woman. Michel Piccoli - I find him quite nauseating lately - the way he mumbles incomprehensibly when he's stuttering around. What a typical pseudo-artistic french Nincompoopeur, I'm sorry Mitch! Mitch Piccoli – I bet there's a French version of Baywatch about to break on the T.V. scene with him and his grey chest hair wobbling up the French Riviera somewhere. "Protecting French sun-bathers from U.S. literature with paperback French existentialist essential reading. "As for Beart's new look – wasn't she even in some commercial? … just a minute … yes, it was an H&M advert where she runs around lingerie-clad in an apartment seducing an invisible stalker. Great message … On the often heard argument on sexiness: "why can't she dress and be sexy if she wants to?" Because you can't have everything. It just doesn't work: A small fraction of women come across sexy AND smart because backing up the "smart part" is oh so difficult. And "sexy" is associated with "slut" – that's how it is, and there is a reason for that. Once again: "denial". (#1 illness of today).In fact: A French woman with silicone implants – how decadent is that. Or did she only get her implants after she found a French translation for "Silicone Implants"? I'd bet my Bentley, Ocean Dreamhouse and Silicone Shaped Dream-Wife on that fact.Now if the French women also start shaving their armpits (which Americans will never believe) we might be getting somewhere. (Eternal Damnation and such)Once again: I'm speechless about the chuzpe/irony of a French actress being shallow like a Hollywood bimbo by inflating her body parts and STILL expecting to have some artistic French quality about her… Unfortunately it takes some actresses DECADES to bed enough important people to get any decent roles and then they need surgery. Life is so unfair, you know.This movie is a good example for the French's predilection for pouting Lolitas. Pervs…One reviewer here professed that he fell asleep. Another said her body wasn't perfect – maybe she read it and got her appointment at the surgeon immediately. Someone said the movie is a "foot-wiggler" – right, either because of boredom or the suppressed sexual thoughts when seeing a woman wriggle around naked – which is absolutely cool & probably the only true quality of this sorry effort.

Seen at face value this movie does not make any sense at all. There is no such thing as a piece of art that in a magic way encompasses deeper, troublesome, unknown truths about a portrayed person which will change the person's life forever (which is a presumption in this movie). That is only a romantic cliché. It is especially difficult to believe that the bleak and anonymous art created in this movie could have that effect. Art can - at its best- reveal a lot of the artist and of the world as seen by the artist, and - at rare moments - art can change the life of the spectator. But art that will change the life of the model? No, I don't think that is very probable.But seen as a metaphor for one person (the old painter) helping another person (the model) to find new truths about herself it makes all the sense in the world. Then we can easily understand the models first resistance to the meeting with the painter, the path leading through difficult moments and joyous moments and finally to the revelation of hidden truths that will change her life forever. (She decides to leave her boyfriend.)Seen in this way the surprising ending where the painting is stuck away for no one to see makes real sense. Of course it is only of value for the model to understand her inner truths, you don't have to tell the world about them. The painter also was kind enough to do another portrait of her to show the world, a portrait where the inner meanings again are hidden. A most satisfactory ending I would say. As a french nun once told me: "Il faut respecter le mystère de l'autre" or "You have to respect the mystery of the other". How true doesn't that ring.If a liked the movie? Yes, it is mesmerizing all four hours. And the twists at the end complete the picture fully. It is a masterpiece.