Hurlevent

Passion and misbehaviour. Two aspects are emphasised: that it is about teenagers, and the force of their violence. The bare presentation draws attention to the artifice of the performances and the movements of the characters through the rural landscape and magnificent, dilapidated architecture. The exception is the addition of dream sequences, themselves very simple, but very effective at adding a sense of the uncanny forces operating at the lower depths. Loses its way a little towards the end.

In many ways, this is a warm up for what I consider Rivette's greatest film 'Jeanne la Pucelle.' In that not only is it a highly disciplined cinematic realisation ('period' film) of a well-known and well-loved story, but it is Rivette flexing his brilliance for depicting epic interior and exterior landscapes (that is both human emotional landscapes as well as natural and man-made landscapes) and the gaps between. Olivier Torres as the androgynous Oliver is a revelation (for me).

Escorpião

Made the boring drivel of the novel watchable.

i was expecting a dull period piece, but this was an excellent theatrical drama. i haven't read wuthering heights, so i don't have a reference for which to complain about how so very different a rivette movie is from a brontë novel. who would have guessed that!

"This is more than just Celine and Julie Go Boating's haunted house melodrama played straight." - Keith Uhlich