As one of the most insightful and thought-provoking directors of his era, there’s never a bad time to celebrate Jacques Rivette, whether looking at some of his towering masterpieces, or the works that have somewhat been neglected over time. If we launch ourselves right to the beginning of his career as a filmmaker, we see that Rivette has the rare distinction of being a director who started off his cinematic journey at the very top, with his directorial debut, Paris Belongs to Us (French: Paris nous appartient), being a fascinating work of postmodernism, produced at a time in which such a term was only gradually starting to infiltrate the vocabulary of artists and scholars. Not a work that should be taken lightly at all, and rather one that has a very specific function, the roots of Rivette’s style and curiosities are still extremely present here, with the director laying the foundation for what was to become one of the most varied careers in cinema history. An insatiably offbeat and foreboding psychological thriller that infuses its simple story with haunting mystery and a darkly comical tone, which dovetail into the construction of a poignant glimpse into the human condition (one of the director’s most notable skills), Paris Belongs to Us is a work of unmitigated genius, a deft and intelligent work that separates itself from some of the other formative texts of the French New Wave (both in its themes and how they’re realized – the film itself can be seen as a pioneering work, since it was made several years before it eventually managed to be released), and creates a fascinating film that is provocative in both form and content, burrowing deep into certain metaphysical issues that feel extremely revolutionary, even as part of a film movement that thrived on outright rebellion against conventions.

A bold, intrepid approach to familiar issues shouldn’t really be cause for too much adulation when considering the French New Wave, since so much of the formative works employed some degree of this, so it’s difficult to single out one as being the great demonstration of what could be done with the form. Rivette was such a profoundly fascinating filmmaker, purely because even within a renegade group of artists, he was so singular in his own vision, and thrived on his immense independence, which made him a director who not only helped define this era in French filmmaking, but went on to explore it even further in subsequent decades, long after this movement had simmered down. Paris Belongs to Us may pale in comparison to some of the work Rivette would do in the 1970s, but it did establish him as someone with a very unique vision – and his outright refusal to play by the rules, while not dismissing the more notable aspects of the filmmaking process, creates quite a compelling experience. This film is one of the few early New Wave films where the meanderings of the petit bourgeoisie doesn’t seem pointless – their various crises of identity and existential despair don’t feel self-indulgent, purely because Rivette strikes the balance between inserting himself and his own curiosities into the film, and being inspired by other works, which creates a multimodal work that doesn’t feel as if its bogged down by his own self-indulgence. Rivette was as original as they came, and even if this film seems somewhat familiar in terms of some of the themes it addresses, the way the director circumvents predictability, and instead thrives on his own steadfast independence, helps give Paris Belongs to Us the credibility it deserves as an early entry into the multilayered film movement it seemed to both help define and openly rebelled against in different ways.

As an avid film-lover, Rivette was clearly employing many of the cinematic ideas he had grown to love into Paris Belongs to Us, which takes the form of an offbeat combination of film noir, high-society comedy and psychological drama, each coming into the film in different ways. This is primarily a film about a young, innocent woman being thrust into a world that is bewildering to her – she’s artistically-minded, which is why the idea of spending evenings with eccentric theatre directors and controversial novelists exiled from their homelands is so alluring to her. However, the tone gradually becomes darker with the subject of death rears its head, particularly in regards to the idea of suicide, which persists throughout the film. Not quite built on a very solid, direct storyline – it’s not necessarily a surrealist piece, but rather one that is a bit more fluid in how it addresses certain issues – Paris Belongs to Us uses the stream-of-consciousness approach to explore the inner workings of a close-knit group of artists, who begin to realize their own infallibility. It almost appears as if Rivette was gently deriding the very nature of the young artists he had grown accustomed to interacting with over the years, with the message of their alienation from society being reflected throughout. They’re a motley crew of artists who each harbour enigmatic traits that prevent us from ever fully understanding them, which is precisely where the film comes into its own, since part of the mystery isn’t finding resolution to whether a friend took his own life, or was murdered, but rather the various elements that drove him and those around him to have such doubts. Situated in a recognizable reality, but more concerned with the inner struggles of its characters rather than the socio-political milieu (which do play a part in the narrative, albeit only as a way to contextualize it to a particular time and place), the film is often preoccupied with providing a particular view of society, as siphoned through its character. The film opens with the lines “Paris n’appartient à personne” (“Paris does not belong to anyone”), which not only conflicts with the title, but the general theme of the film.

We’re thrust into a web of distinct personalities, and we passively watch as they grow to realize how there is a world outside of their insular artistic lives. The protagonist is gradually welcomed into a world she doesn’t quite understand – she’s the odd one out in a band of outsiders, which makes her the audience surrogate, and allows us to be given unfettered insights into the raggedy group of artists who gradually descend into paranoia. The sense of foreboding danger intermingles with the overwhelming sense of creativity actively pursued by these characters – it’s almost as if these individuals are perceiving the suicide of a friend (and the realization that it could happen again at any moment) as some construction, a game to be played by these characters as they navigate a version of the world they seem so hopelessly detached from. Reality and fiction blur constantly throughout the course of Paris Belongs to Us, which seems openly intent on subverting what we know to be true in a very peculiar way. Rivette’s immense ability to navigate even the most treacherous narrative territory in a way that was both stark and playful is a consistent factor in positioning him as a true cinematic original, since he was able to extract some profound commentary from some of the most unexpected places. He carefully calibrates many of these ideas through employing a cryptic approach that takes active engagement from the viewer to fully understand – it’s a puzzle of a film, and demonstrates how Rivette wasn’t intent on confusing his viewers, but rather alienating them in the same way as his characters, employing a more visceral, hardened approach to resonant themes that put us alongside these individuals in their various existential ponderings.

It’s not a coincidence that the coda of Paris Belongs to Us features footage from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, the definitive text on the subject of the angst that comes when the individual becomes fully cognizant of the intimidating nature of the city, which becomes a character on its own. Constructed less from self-indulgent ramblings about the value of youth and individuality, and more from a genuine curiosity with some of the more unspoken challenges afflicting society in the decades after the Second World War (which plays quite an important role, even if it is barely even mentioned outside of mere allusion to the Cold War and McCarthyism). It’s a layered work that requires the viewer to immerse themselves in this world, and while it may be challenging at times – the length could be intimidating for some (although 140 minutes is very paltry by the director’s standards), and some of the discourse here seems a lot more impenetrable than we’d be used to, Paris Belongs to Us is ultimately an incredibly rewarding experience. It is a film shrouded in mystery, which gradually unravels in unexpected ways, taking us on a complex, nuanced journey both into the namesake city and the various lives that populate it, demonstrating the intersections that both give a sense of belonging and continue to remind one to their own inner isolation, the detachment that comes from realizing just how intimidating the world around us actually tends to be from time to time.