Secret Defense

Sandrine Bonnaire, on the move, in Secret Defense

Jacques Rivette's Secret Defense, from 1998, is a rather conventional effort from the director. Sylvie, played by Sandrine Bonnaire, is a research scientist working in Paris. The film's plot is sparked by Sylvie's brother Paul who brings her evidence that their father's death five years previous may not have been an accident. Paul, a down at the heels character who seems to be on the spectrum (and who has an antecedent in the Rivette canon, the paranoid character played by Jean-Pierre Leaud in Out 1), doesn't seem reliable, but Sylvie gradually comes to share his suspicions. The prime suspect is a business associate of the father named Walser, played in an oily and dissembling fashion by Jerzy Radziwilowicz.

As usual in paranoid thrillers, plans for revenge go awry. On a conventional and basic level, Secret Defense is a failure as a psychological mystery. The dénouement arrives after a very deliberate running time of nearly three hours. I left the film with a feeling of incredulousness rather than catharsis at the concluding revelation that supposedly explains all. Is that all there is, as Peggy Lee once asked. If Claude Chabrol had made this film it would have been a tight 101 minutes instead of a meandering 170. Like nearly all French directors, Rivette has difficulty depicting violence. The two deaths by pistol in Secret Defense fail to convince on a technical level.

The acting is all over the place in this film. If there is one aspect of Rivette's direction that remains from his more experimental films of the 60s and 70s, it is his every man for himself tude towards his players. He does not micromanage his players, for good and ill. Most of the supporting cast is at sea here. The most interesting performances are on the periphery (Hermine Karagheuz's nurse, whoever plays the boor on the train). Radziwilowicz overplays his character's cold affect early on, but provides some interesting notes of menace as the film unspools, mostly with a blocky posture. A romantic interest is introduced for Sylvie, but he is continually rebuffed as she becomes more obsessed with investigating the mystery of her father's fate. This subplot could have been completely dropped from the film with no detriment, mostly because Bonnaire acts her co-star off the screen.

Despite these gripes, a failure by Rivette is more interesting than successes by most directors. Bonnaire gives a riveting performance which provides an emotional center as she paces and prowls through office and living space. Conveyance is the primary motif as Bonnaire is constantly going from one point to another in scooters, autos, trains or trolleys. Secret Defense seems inspired by Stephane Audran's trolley ride in La Rupture, itself a tip of the chapeau to the streetcar sequence in Sunrise. In all these films, the ride is a metaphor for and an embodiment of its characters' emotional evolution. 

Despite its longueurs, Secret Defense provides a rich viewing experience. The film is color coded with costumes denoting reason (blue), passion (red), and death (black, natch). Even though its climax had me ripping out the few remaining hairs on my head, Secret Defense's mise en scene has its compensatory rewards.