Plot introduction
After her brother was killed by a notorious all-female pirate gang, Morag dedicates her life to bringing the murderers to justice. Soon, she has become an important member of the pirate gang and has begun acquiring the loyalty of key members. Eventually, she makes her move and challenges the leader, a demi-god (literally), known as "The Daughter of the Sun." The story of Noroit is based on an early 17th-century tragedy by Cyril Tourneur, and, though it is only the third one filmed, the movie is the concluding episode in a four-part series by director Jacques Rivette. “With NOROÎT, Jacques Rivette has joined Federico Fellini as one of the great autobiographical surrealists of the cinema” (John Hughes). Based on the bloody Jacobean play, “The Revenger's Tragedy,” and influenced by samurai films, Fritz Lang, and Samuel Fuller, NOROÎT was shot in a fifteenth-century chateau and a twelfth-century seaside fortress, and stars Geraldine Chaplin as the ghostly Morag, out to avenge the death of her brother who was murdered by a group of women pirates. With its emphasis on ritual, fantasy, and spectacle, “NOROÎT contains the most beautiful images and sounds of any Rivette film” (Jonathan Rosenbaum, Sight & Sound ). expand all
