A slow, deliberate psychological study of two proud early 19th century lovers who torture each other through coquetry and silence. Rivette is a marvelous director of actors, and Balibar and Depardieu display much nuanced emotion, creating two characters who--in spite of all they reveal to each other and us--remain mysteries of self-destruction.

"The film is a piercing pas de deux that excoriates romance even as its doomed characters are consumed by it." - Fernando F. Croce

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

An elegant tale chronicling the complex and failed love affair between a married duchess and a decorated army officer. Rivette films the action beautifully with a camera that floats through the room, while unfolding the story in a subtle manner. Most interesting in the film is the duchess' choosing of religion as death to escape her fatally flawed relationship. What is for many a choice to a fuller kind of life becomes for her a means of ushering in her death.