This is a spectacularly successful mystery film by director Jacques Rivette, who also collaborated on the screenplay. His films always contain long, lingering shots and scenes that seem to go on forever. Sometimes this can be so irritating one wants to scream. For instance, I tried three times to watch his LA BELLE NOISEUSE (1991) and gave up in exasperation each time because it was so boring, so enormously long, and like a vanity exercise. One would therefore think that the last person to make a successful thriller would be Rivette, with his slow pace. But incredibly, with this film, his snail's pace works perfectly and turns the film into a masterpiece. This would have been impossible without the genius actress Sandrine Bonnaire, who plays the lead and monopolizes the screen with complete success. Bonnaire made it clear to the world that she was at a higher level than most actresses in 1985 when she starred in Agnes Varda's extraordinary and searing film, VAGABOND (SANS TOI NI LOI). She is so quiet and meditative that she sucks the audience into the vortex of her thoughts, and carries us right along with her as she swirls with silent, unarticulated torment. She showed this again in the amazing L'EMPREINTE DE L'ANGE (MARK OF AN ANGEL aka ANGEL OF MINE, 2008, see my review). She really is one of the most intense and powerful actresses in the world today. In this film, she plays a cold, introverted, determined woman who has withdrawn into herself and is unable to return affection without the greatest of difficulty. The man who is constantly courting her and assuring her of his feelings is barely noticed by her, so absorbed is she in her own issues, and preoccupied by what is troubling her. 'Secret défense' is the French expression corresponding to 'official secret' in English. It is not necessarily a reference to military defence (British) or military defense (USA). Although Bonnaire's deceased father had been the head of France's largest defence contractor, succeeded by the mysterious figure of Walser, played with appropriate ambiguity by Polish actor Jerzy Radziwilowicz (which by the way means 'son of Radziwil' in Polish), who is so well known to cinema lovers from Andrezj Wajda's classic films MAN OF MARBLE (1977) and MAN OF IRON (1981), these hints of military secrecy flicker in the background like the reflections on a wall in an indoor swimming pool, but never come into focus. This all helps to create the air of menace and conspiracy which pervades this film, and which expresses the French attitude towards the worlds of officialdom, money and power. This film is primarily one of slow realization of what had previously seemed inconceivable to the normal and innocent mind. Bonnaire is brilliant at slowly coming to these realizations before our eyes, in the lingering shots where there is nothing between her face and us but her thoughts. How easily this film could have failed miserably! But she and Rivette together pull it off, almost as a miracle. I was on the edge of my seat for each and every prolonged scene, and never lost patience. The slow pace merely serves to heighten and intensify the unbearable suspense. Somehow Rivette knew the exact instant to cut. As soon as a scene has served its purpose, and been squeezed of the last of its juice, it skin is thrown into the bucket and we reach for the next fruit. I watched this film twice because I wanted to be sure. Yes, it really is a masterpiece of filmmaking. The music at the beginning and the end is viola da gamba music played by Jordi Savall (one of the world's two best gamba players, the other being the younger Paolo Pandolfo). The film's inherent ambiguity and theme of double-appearances is intensified by the acting of the amazing Laure Marsac, who plays identical twin sisters. Both of them are in a perpetual state of volatile and wavering uncertainty. After Bonnaire is informed by her younger brother that he has found evidence that their father had been murdered five years before, and that he was pushed from a train by someone, and did not jump and commit suicide as officially recorded, she receives a curious visit from Marsac, who is Walser's secretary and lover. This is one of the most ambiguous scenes in the film, in which nothing which is intended to be said is actually said by Marsac, and she reluctantly leaves without having made her purpose clear at all. The air of mystery is continually heightened by such devices of the story. Guns are continually being taken out of pockets and put into drawers or desks, and we don't know where they keep coming from. We are constantly aware that they are there, and could be removed and used by one of the many increasingly desperate people in this story. Then one of the twin sisters disappears and suddenly she is seen again by the shocked characters in the story, only to be revealed as the unknown twin whom they had not realized existed. She moves into the country mansion known as 'the Domaine' and assumes the role of her vanished sister. Meanwhile, Bonnaire's desperate younger brother is charging around on his motorbike with his gun, threatening to kill Walser, who he says killed his father in order to take over his company. A photo has mysteriously appeared, we are never told from where, showing Walser with his father on the train platform on the morning of the father's death, contradicting Walser's supposed alibi that he was elsewhere at the time. This film has two parallel stories, like two parallel universes, the false and the true. At how many points do these intersect? And how can truth be separated from illusion in this double world where it is not only sisters who are twins, but events themselves which exist in two forms and which bear an ambiguous and double interpretation?

With "Secret Defense", a celebrated "art" director (Jacques Rivette) tackles a popular "pulp" genre (the mystery thriller). The result is demanding yet unpretentious; what Rivette asks from his audience is simply to surrender to his own specific style and rhythm, which means: no musical score (except for the credits), long camera takes, detailed observation of (not always) insignificant everyday activities, no comic relief, etc. If you are prepared to do that, the film is very accessible; it has a solid, coherent plot and gives you, gradually, every piece of the puzzle. It's basically a meditation on the twists of fate, leading to a shocking yet plausible ending. And as you'd expect from a French film, the acting is exceptional; Sandrine Bonnaire doesn't simply play the central tormented character, she becomes one with it. On the whole, I think "Secret Defense" is a refreshing break from both "too-commercial" and "too-arty" fare, and an engrossing experience. *** out of 4.

Former French New Wave director and writer Jacques Rivette's seventeenth feature film, written by himself, his frequent collaborator Pascal Bonitzer and Emmanuelle Cuau, tells the story of medical researcher Sylvie who becomes alarmingly unsettled when her younger brother Paul claims that he can prove that their deceased father was actually killed by his closest colleague named Walser. Puzzled by her brothers questionable discovery she sets out on a private investigation that leads her into a personal odyssey.Precisely directed and brilliantly structured, this subtle and character-driven neo-noir from one of the greatest auteur filmmakers in cinema history is a rhythmic and distinguished thriller about a woman who has to go on a deep voyage into her own past in order to learn the truth about her family. The long runtime which is a Jacques Rivette hallmark, the efficient editing, the quick-witted dialogue and William Lubtchansky's atmospheric photography, increases the mystery in this late 1990s small masterpiece which has aspects of drama and theatre, a prominent performance from Sandrine Bonnaire as the female protagonist and a harmonic score. The love for cinema shines in so many of Jacques Rivette's films, and this is no exception.

Five years after Sylvie's father dies, he comes to haunt her. It all starts when Paul, her unstable brother, brings her a picture where his father is seen at the train station before he jumped to his death. Paul points to a shadowy figure in the background and both come to the conclusion is Walser, an enigmatic figure that is now in charge of their father's business.When Paul vows to avenge his father, Sylvie decides to do it herself because she figures in her brother's mental state, he'll probably botch it. Sylvie, who has confronted Walser in his office, after she has received the unexpected visit of Veronique, his secretary, prepares for the trip to the country estate where she will commit the crime. Unfortunately, instead of killing Walser, she accidentally kills Veronique.Walser disposes the body, and makes Sylvie his accomplice. Things are further complicated by the arrival of Ludivine, Vero's sister who bears an uncanny resemblance to her dead sibling. Walser proceeds to seduce the young woman, who stays in the estate, much to the chagrin of Sylvie.The key to the story lies with Genevieve, Sylvie's mother. The mystery involves the strange suicide by Elizabeth, her oldest daughter when Sylvie was a young girl. That tragedy involved the dead father as the one responsible for the young woman's death. Walser, who appears to be the guilty party all along, turns out to be an instrument used by Genevieve to avenge Elizabeth's death.Jacques Rivette's 1998 film "Secret Defense" is a thriller in the style of Hitchcock, but he doesn't hold any surprises, since he doesn't hide anything from the viewer. This story is told as Sylvie sees it. As such, we are always following her, either on the Metro when she goes to see Paul, or taking train trips in which her mental state is right there for us to see. This is a variation on the theme of the classical Electra, adapted to a modern setting.Sandrine Bonnaire makes a great Sylvie. Ms. Bonnaire is never boring, in spite of the length of the film. Jerzy Radzilowicz, a distinguished Polish actor plays Walser in a complex performance. He doesn't endear to us from the start, but by the end we realize what's in his head. Laure Masrac appears in the dual role of Veronique/Ludivine with great ease. Gregoire Colin has only limited opportunity, as well as Francoise Fabien."Secret Defense" is not a film for everyone. Like anything from this French director, he is more interested in what his characters are doing at any given time as he takes us along for those rides, something that with another man at the helm, perhaps those scenes would be edited. The film makes sense after all the evidence is examined, but it might appear boring for those viewers that Mr. Rivette lost along the way to solving the main issue in the story.