''Love on the Ground'' (french: L'Amour par terre) is a 1984 French film directed by

Jacques Rivette Jacques Rivette (; 1 March 1928 – 29 January 2016) was a French film director and film critic most commonly associated with the French New Wave and the film magazine '' Cahiers du Cinéma''. He made twenty-nine films, including '' L'amour f ...

. The film stars

Jane Birkin Jane Mallory Birkin, OBE (born 14 December 1946) is an English-French singer and actress. She attained international fame and notability for her decade-long musical and romantic partnership with Serge Gainsbourg. She also had a prolific career ...

Geraldine Chaplin Geraldine Leigh Chaplin (born July 31, 1944) is an American actress. She is the daughter of Charlie Chaplin, the first of eight children with his fourth wife, Oona O'Neill. After beginnings in dance and modeling, she turned her attention to act ...

André Dussollier André Dussollier (born 17 February 1946) is a French actor An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as fi ...

and

Jean-Pierre Kalfon Jean-Pierre Kalfon (born 30 October 1938) is a French actor and singer. Selected filmography External links * 1938 births Living people French male film actors French male television actors Male actors from Paris French male stage a ...

. It was released in France on 17 October 1984.

Plot

On the streets of Paris, a man mysteriously collects a group of people, finally leading them into a small apartment to witness a theatre performance. The audience, in close proximity to the actors, become voyeurs. As they walk from room to room, they watch as bumbling Silvano (Bo) attempts to hide his two girlfriends, Charlotte (Chaplin) and Emily (Birkin), from each other in this same crowded apartment. While the actors feel frustrated at the shambles of a set they must work with, the play's author, Clément Roquemaure (Kalfon), is silently auditioning them for his new play, to be held at his strangely empty mansion. After arriving at the unusual mansion, which has many wildly painted rooms, Charlotte and Emily start to experience disturbing visions, in part due to the presence of a magician, Paul, who also lives at the mansion. As the rehearsal progresses, the two actresses' visions start to unearth a romantic calamity that took place at the mansion. The final performance of the play places the two actresses into a possible tragic re-enactment of the very horror they are only now beginning to understand.

Cast

as Charlotte *

as Emily *

as Paul *

as Clément Roquemaure *Isabelle Linnartz as Béatrice *Sandra Montaigu as Eléonore * László Szabó as Virgil *Facundo Bo as Silvano

Reception

Janet Maslin Janet R. Maslin (born August 12, 1949) is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for ''The New York Times''. She served as a ''Times'' film critic from 1977 to 1999 and as a book critic from 2000 to 2015. In 2000 Maslin ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' noted that the screenplay "wittily affords the director a great many opportunities for a brand of gamesmanship that enlivens the film without trivializing it. Mr. Rivette is able to sustain a complex, shifting relationship between the real and the theatrical without losing the film's overriding sense of fun." Maslin continued her analysis; "The process by which Clement's theatrical work is molded to fit reality, and vice versa, is rendered in a clever, entertaining style that fits perfectly with the behavior of the participants, since Mr. Rivette displays a cool ingenuity that matches that of the performers. Even when it becomes entangled in the romances that take shape during the course of the week, the film sustains its trickiness and sophistication." Maslin also praised the casting; "Miss Birkin and Miss Chaplin make an invigorating team, and the combination of their offbeat styles is full of surprises."Maslin, Janet. ''"Amour Par Terre" by Jacques Rivette''. The New York Times. 7 October 1984. pp. 86

Colin Greenland Colin Greenland (born 17 May 1954 in Dover, Kent, England) is a British science fiction writer, whose first story won the second prize in a 1982 Faber & Faber competition. His best-known novel is ''Take Back Plenty'' (1990), winner of both majo ...

reviewed ''L'amour par terre'' for ''

Imagine Imagine may refer to: * Imagination Music Albums * ''Imagine'' (Armin van Buuren album), 2008 * ''Imagine'' (Eva Cassidy album), 2002 * ''Imagine'' (Janice Vidal album), 2012 * ''Imagine'' (John Lennon album), 1971 ** ''Imagine: John Lennon' ...

'' magazine, and stated that "A teasing mystery, with wry, sensitive performances from Geraldine Chapman and Jane Birkin."

References

External links

* 1984 films French avant-garde and experimental films Films directed by Jacques Rivette Films set in Paris 1980s avant-garde and experimental films 1980s French-language films 1980s French films {{1980s-France-film-stub