Va savoir

The only time I felt anything for one of the characters here was near the beginning, when Camille, the lead actor in a Parisian production of a Pirandello play, a French woman speaking in Italian, has trouble remembering her lines (she is pre-occupied by a past love affair which had taken place in that city). The rest of the time I was either mildly amused, or just bored. It is hard to find empathy with a group who seem to be as artificial off the stage as they are on it. There are some nice moments, especially when Ugo fends off temptation from the lovely Dominique, and the duel scene between Ugo and the prat of a philosopher who was once his partner Camille's lover, but the whole thing takes far too long (2 hours 20 minutes), lacks tension and above all calls for minimal involvement on the part of the viewer.

It's rather interesting that Ugo is searching for an unpublished 18th century play. If theatre is to avoid being relegated to museums, producers need either to put on new stuff, or at least to present old material in an innovative way. Ugo seems to regard the past as more important than the future (a pointer, perhaps to the age of the director here).

The atmosphere here reminded me of `Amelie'. Both films have popped up at various film festivals around the world as examples of current French film production. If they are typical, then you might think the French film industry is headed for irrelevancy, but the Marseilles films of Robert Guediguian fortunately suggest otherwise.

I was bored to death by this movie. The main character is a self-centered and selfish actress whose problems failed to interest me. I stayed with it for an hour, and walked away; my wife said it became somewhat better toward the end. If all drama must be divided into comedy and tragedy, then in that sense this is a comedy. However, when movie reviewers call a movie a comedy, I think we are entitled to believe they mean it is funny. Tastes differ, and I accept that some might find this movie interesting, but by no stretch of the imagination could anyone in his right mind call it "funny." I wouldn't have rented this video except for a quotation on the box, in which A. O. Scott of The New York Times wrote, "An especially rich and subtle farce . . . resolved with the verve and precision of classic screwball comedy."

This is an interesting, yet at times boring movie. It is not boring necessarily because you get bored while watching, but it's because you don't get attached to any of the characters for a long time. There are two stories going on. They are intertwined. The story of the play that we don't understand much about, except seeing the possible alterego of our main woman character and also of course there is the story of these six individuals, three men and three women. They are all in search of something literally or symbolically.

While watching this film, you might pause, have some dinner, go back, continue. The phone rings, you forget about it, start watching again, and fall asleep. The next morning, you wake up, decide to watch, you think of looking it up at IMDb and you just do that. Throughout the film, there is a huge amount of feeling going back and forth, but we all (together with the director, the movie cast and the crew) watch it all happen as if it's not even happening. In a way, the movie is too French-cool, which also makes it unique. This attachment I am talking about, because of its non-existence, you might just end up finishing the film in three days, but maybe the more crucial thing is that no matter what, you do wanna go back and see what's haunting you. You can't let go. In a way, that's exactly what the main character feels. She can't let go either. There is something calm about her, something serene. We are not impressed at first, but slowly she becomes a goddess of determination and genuineness. Yet, there is something that triggers her mind and it steals her peace.

Luckily as time goes on, we observe her internal-peace-movement. In this sense, this movie is either very successful and it gave me the exact feeling, or maybe I am overly empathetic : )

It did take me 3 days to watch, with numerous interruptions of daily life, and I even stopped watching now and started writing this review.

Yes, I do not know the ending yet. Do watch it, if you are someone who does a lot of thinking about the complexities of interpersonal relationships (especially about romantic ones), but make sure you are patient, interested, and ready to think.

I felt I should like this film more than I did. It is set in current day Paris where a theatre troupe is putting on a Italian production. The story revolves around a French actress in the troupe who is married to the director of the theatre group who is returning to Paris for the first time in years and still has unresolved feelings for an ex who resides in the city. The acting is solid if not very good, and the plot does hold interest and hangs together well. Having said this I could not help but feel the whole thing was somewhat slight and the payoff in time (it is or seemed like a very long movie) was somewhat unjustified. In some ways the characters seemed almost distant to me, they were real but I couldnt get inside their head, which in some ways is a silly criticism because life is like that and that is not necessarily a detraction for the film but I felt as though they were drifting through a series of set pieces with not all that much at stake. Having said this it is definitely worth a look and certainly should be sought if you enjoy cinema that goes beyond the pedestrian plot lines and pyrotechnics of all too many mainstream features today.

The film's heroine, Camille, a French stage actress left Paris three years ago and found success in Torino, Italy where she became a lead actress for the theater company. She also became a lover of Ugo, a famous stage director. She returns back to Paris with Ugo and his company to act in Italian as a main character in Pirandello's "As You Desire Me", the play that explores the mysteries of identity and memory. While in Paris, Camille confronts her past life and Pierre, the man whom she loved and still can't forget. I found Camille's character (as played by Jeanne Balibar, the stage actress and a dancer) very interesting. She may not be likable in a beginning but she is talented and every character in the movie after watching her performing at the stage leaves with the feelings that they've witnessed something very special. Camille changes as the movie progresses and in the end she becomes like a sister or close friend to both Celine and Julie. Her every movement, gesture, the way she walks, smiles, turns her head, speaks in two languages changing the timbre of her voice are true marvels to watch and to listen to.

Ugo tries to find in the Paris libraries the lost but existing play by the Italian dramatist of 18th century, Carlo Goldoni and is helped by an intelligent and beautiful young student, Dominique or Do and they both seem to have developed some special feelings for each other. Dominique has a half-brother, Arthur who is in love with Sonja, a new woman in Pierre's life or is he in love with Sonja's exquisite jewelry? Do and Arthur have a mother, Madame Desprez who has inherited the library of the rare and priceless old books but she does not sell them, she keeps them as a memory of her first husband. Sonja, Pierre's girlfriend seems to bring the peace and happiness in Pierre's life after Camille was gone but she, too, had a mystery in her rather wild past for which a marvelous ring, an object of Arthur's desire serves as a reminder.

I like "Va savoir" a lot - it is so well constructed and absolutely Rivettesque and it made me smile all the time. It is long (as usual for Rivette's films) but elegantly relaxed. It moves well with its own wonderful pace and we enjoy leisure walkings and spend time with many old and rare books. We feel longing that is in the air - all six characters desire something and someone. We notice once again how much Rivette likes his characters sitting on the park bench where the magic events begin happening to them. We go through many wonderful sequences, ironic, dramatic, and lyrical and in the end we are awarded by the finale which is truly grand and theatrical in the best sense. After all the movie could be viewed as Rivette's love letter to theater. Va Savoir? Who knows?