The Duchess of Langeais (Ne Touchez Pas La Hache)(Don't Touch the Axe) poster & wallpaper

Anne Cantineau, Beppe Chierici, Bulle Ogier

Antoinette is the Duchess of Langeais, a married coquette who frequents the most extravagant balls in 1820's Paris during The Restoration, where hypocrisy and vanity reign. Upon the handsome general, ...( read more  read more... )Armand de Montriveau's first meeting with her, he realized it was true love from that moment on. Flattered by his attentions, the alluring Antoinette orchestrates a calculating game of seduction, but she repeatedly refuses Montriveau. Despite his sincere romantic declarations, Montriveau's passion remains unfulfilled. When the humiliated Montriveau eventually seeks his revenge, Antoinette's love awakens. But it may well be too late for the star-crossed lovers.

Flixster Users

50% liked it

698 ratings

Critics

67% liked it

61 critics

Unrated, 2 hrs. 17 min.

Directed by: Jacques Rivette

Release Date: February 15, 2007

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Flixster Reviews (109)

  • columbiatch
    July 27, 2008
    columbiatch
    Very playful but also quite stuffy and theatrical. I guess Rivette was trying to show how society's romantic rituals are nothing more than theatrics but I don't care for any of its characters. It's like what the Last Mistress would have been if it was focused on the battle of wil...( read more)ls between its characters instead of lust.
  • Phonex
    October 17, 2009
    Phonex
    Jacques Rivette returns to the rigorous formalism and claustrophobic interiors of La Religeuse to create a refined, bituminous, and cooly smoldering tale of seduction, obsession, and manners in The Duchess of Langeais. Remaining faithful to the spirit of Honoré de Balzac?s ninete...( read more)enth century novel (the second installment featuring the adventures of a secret organization known as the Thirteen), the film, nevertheless retains the imprint of Rivette?s recurring preoccupations with the stage, performance, conspiracy, and malleable time. In The Duchess of Langeais, the tell-tale signal for the start of the performance is cleverly concealed behind the rakish military officer and Napoleonic war hero, Armand de Montriveau?s (Guillaume Depardieu) impatient tapping of his cane during mass at a remote Spanish cloister, sullenly registering his displeasure at not being able to catch a glimpse of Las Descalzas, the barefoot nuns of St. Theresa, during services. Having arrived at the desolate peninsula on the Mediterranean after sailing to the ends of the earth over the past five years in search of his lost love, a Parisian aristocrat named Antoinette de Langeais (Jeanne Balibar), Montriveau is quick to dispense with formalities and exploit his influence in order to obtain a meeting with the order's sole French initiate who, accompanied by a Spanish-speaking chaperone, seems willing to consent to Montriveau's request for an audience by claiming him as her brother (note the reinforcement of the theater image in the parting of curtains that separate the cloistered nuns from the outside world). However, when Antoinette exposes the ruse in order to escape Montriveau's desperate entreaties, he is forced to confront the ghosts of their unreconciled past as he hatches a plan to liberate her from her spiritual captivity and compel her to return to face their impossible destiny. In presenting Antoinette and Montriveau's courtship as a choreography of performance, mise-en-scène (especially in Antoinette's feigned illness during one appointment, adjusting the room's lighting and accoutrements that reinforce their encounters as exercises in role-playing), and timing (in Antoinette's insistence on punctuality that provides the irony - and denouement - for their uncoupling), Rivette creates a potent metaphor for performance as both a mask and a nakedness, where the impenetrability of the human heart is exposed through frustrated, arbitrary rituals and untenable desire.
  • Liloh
    February 10, 2009
    Liloh
    Guillaume Depardieu Like Father like Son, we use to say.

    Ne Touchez Pas La Hache : Don`t touch the Axe.

    I LOVE FRENCH! I would love to translate the Quotes, though they dont sound tasty like in French.
    WOT iz wif the review? The rating speaks for itself!
  • cchocollat
    January 23, 2009
    cchocollat
    Ugh, this is so Balzac. If I had been in a better disposition when I saw the movie, perhaps I would've liked it more. But this way I got bored.

View All The Duchess of Langeais (Ne Touchez Pas La Hache)(Don't Touch the Axe) Reviews

Critic Reviews

October 18, 2008
Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com

Maybe even Rivette himself is a little too delicate for this ferocious, intensely focused pair. But he's fascinated by them, and ultimately, he loves them. full review

June 20, 2008
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

The everyday moviegoer will find it as impenetrable as its heroine. But if you vibrate to nuances of style, if you enjoy tension gathering strength beneath terrible restraint, if you admire great acti... full review

May 9, 2008
Colin Covert, The Minneapolis Star Tribune

The Duchess of Langeais is a stately costume drama of wrenching passions expressed in courtly phrases. full review

March 28, 2008
Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer

Based on a Balzac story, Rivette's Duchess manages to be both old-fashioned in its settings and circumstances, and coolly modern in its view of thwarted passion and despair. full review

March 21, 2008
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

The movie's satisfactions are subtle, but they run deep, and there are many. full review

February 22, 2008
Kyle Smith, New York Post

Exquisite void. full review

February 20, 2008
Armond White, The New York Press

Duchess of Langeais -- compared to an exhilarating neo-New Wave movie like The Witnesses -- is always dull. full review

February 19, 2008
David Edelstein, New York Magazine

With the simplest of means, the director Jacques Rivette has cut a path to the heart of Balzac's The Duchess of Langeais. full review

February 15, 2008
Nick Schager, Lessons of Darkness

Well acted and aesthetically attractive, the film remains by and large inert. full review

View more The Duchess of Langeais (Ne Touchez Pas La Hache)(Don't Touch the Axe) reviews at RottenTomatoes.com

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