Vivre sa vie: Film en douze tableaux

"Birds are creatures with an outside, and an inside. When you remove the outside, you see the inside. When you remove the inside, you see the soul." "Vivre Sa Vie" is an incredibly desultory film about a confused girl (Nana) with an existential crisis; namely, the task of reconciling her decision to become a prostitute with her belief in a free will. As the repercussions of the "painting" she has rendered gradually spiral out of control, Nana becomes progressively more alienated from and confused about her life. This culminates in a chilling scene in a diner, where she lays her soul bare before a well-meaning philosopher, who responds to her desperate queries about the gulf between words and emotions with more words. Erudite words that she cannot possibly understand.

Godard probes his favorite existential motifs with wonderful sensitivity here. When Miss Karina espouses her belief that a "plate is a plate" and a "life is a life", the overwhelming sadness in her eyes betrays the torment of a woman who feels torn from her self by circumstance. Nana turns to prostitution after breaking with her lover, failing to secure a spot in the movies, and being evicted from her flat. Watching her struggle to exact some control over a world that is clearly much bigger than her designs is emotionally draining.

As usual with Godard, the cinematography is lush and his cinema eye is constantly roving. Before Nana's first trick, the camera cuts from Karina's panicked eyes, to a bar of soap. It is a relatively simple, yet effective, symbol that defines a relatively simple, yet affecting film.

This has become my favourite Godard. It doesn't have the jazzy razzamatazz and classic Paris shots of A bout de souffle, or the invigorating Marxist politics of Tout va bien, or the beautiful scenary, beautiful body and beautiful music of Le Mepris, but it has a softness and a depth that are just haunting. It has a documentary quality in its most reflective moments, when we see Nana lighting a cigarette or undoing her cardigan. It is a film that is made up of disparate strands - poetic, documentary, melodramatic. It both creates Nana as star of the piece, with her sweet smile, beautiful coats, and cropped hair, and even, at one point, identification with Joan of Arc, yet undermines this to underline how ordinary, how vulnerable, even how banal she is. If you're new to Godard, start with this.

As the film opens Paul and Nana are going through a break-up. Each is filmed with their back to the camera. As Nana says she wants to die, it makes me think that, when we turn our back on the most significant person in our life, it can be like turning our backs on life itself. Such a big part of our identity is bound up with them that there seems nothing left. It is as if we have failed to heed the advice of Montaigne, quoted at the end of the opening credits: "Lend yourself to others and give yourself to yourself." Of course, Godard may not be intending for me to have such thoughts. For much of the film I get the distinct impression that he does not want me to interpret anything as anything, but just to accept it as it is. But the film, within a few minutes, has sparked off some interesting and worthwhile thought in me and I like this. It seems to be what art should do. And that it should do it simply by existing, not by trying to convey some message of its own.

For much of the film that follows, part of my mind is taken up with enjoying the crisp black and white photography. The streets of Paris, and other simple but finely observed detail. The lustre of Anna Karina's hair – she plays Nana – is as enchanting as if I were talking to her. And maybe talking about nothing very much in particular so that my mind could wander to such things. The quality of the print is sufficient to make out individual hairs – or hairline cracks in walls and furniture.

The overall effect – taken with some other devices that I only slowly become aware of – is to give a documentary-like feel to what the camera is seeing. Nana splits from Paul and drifts into prostitution. It happens without any big dramatics. She has been working in a record store, is having trouble paying her back rent, and, after a few other minor incidents, we see her with her first client. The look of repressed emotion on her face is one of the most stark and memorable images in the film. A bit like Edvard Munch's painting, The Scream. But sublimated into what is portrayed as a very everyday setting.

Later, in a rapid monotone, Nana's pimp even gives us a run-down of prices, laws, regulations and practices. It is almost the Brechtian splitting of the film into twelve chapters (each with long titles telling us what is about to happen), and Godard's increasingly frequent experiments that separate the sound from the image, that remind us this is fiction, not docu-drama.

For instance, towards the end and when Nana is with a young man she rather likes (and the attraction seems mutual, maybe love), their conversation is not heard by us but only seen on the screen as subtitles. They are communicating soundlessly perhaps, as lovers do.

There is a long scene where she discusses the meaning of language with an old man, a philosopher (played by Godard's former philosophy teacher). Although this is outwardly quite deep, I did not find the arguments nearly as profound or rigorous as in Godard's later film, 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her. Prostitution is not used here, as it is in 2 or 3 things, as a political metaphor. Susan Sontag, in her aptly titled essays, Against Interpretation, suggests that it is, "the most radical metaphor for the separating out of the elements of a life – as a testing ground, a crucible for the study of what is essential and what is superfluous in a life." She sees Nana as having divested herself of her old identity and taken on her new identity – that of a prostitute.

In the version I watched, quite a few lines were omitted from the English subtitling, so my smattering of French came in useful. But I needed some of the subtler French puns on the 'life' and 'chickens' pointed out to me.

As the film came to its not untypically Godard-like abrupt ending, I wondered for a minute if it was as great as some people often claim. The celebrated critic Roger Ebert, for instance, singles it out as one of the great movies of all time. My mind wandered to such movies as Last Year at Marienbad, and Jules and Jim, both made about the same time and which have left quite a deep impression on me. But only for a minute.

Vivre Sa Vie is different, yet again, to any other work by Godard. But it is deceptively unassuming, and a remarkably solid piece of work for all its sense of transience (Godard compared cinema to a train rather than the station). It can also be seen as a love letter from Godard to his wife, the beautifully photographed Anna Karina.

The crux of 60's Godard. His quirks are broken down into twelve segments manageable for the inexperienced viewer. If only one Godard film is to be watched, it might be this one. Though none of us would want to live in that world.

The film opens with an entrancing first ten minutes. The credit sequence and ensuing scene introduce the crucial theme of acting versus reality. Nana, played by Anna Karina, seems to never truly escape the personality of the actress who portrays her. Instead of avoiding this, Godard embraces the ambiguity and creates an entire film that obsesses over Karina's image. From the credits to "Fin"? the audience, like Nana, is fixated on her outward appearance. She constantly references her desire to be in movies and have her picture taken. Ultimately, she becomes a prostitute, seemingly the only place to turn for a girl who allows herself to be mercilessly controlled by men. This tragedy is underscored by her clear desire to be "special"? and, most potently, in her tearful viewing of Jeanne d'arc, a woman who faces death at the hands of men. Nana's personality and development can be seen as a vehicle for Godard's philosophy on film. The "men photographing women" had become perverted to the point of solicitation and death. The obvious parallels between the ending of VIVRE and BREATHLESS suggest a pessimistic condemnation of contemporary law and society.

Godard's deliberate camera motion, defiant attitude towards cinematic grammar, and clear pacing created a film that, though fictional, is one of the most honest human portraits available. Always experimenting with sound, the director never succumbs to standard over-the- shoulder dialogue sequences. Instead, he accesses another level of meaning by making deliberate choices over who is seen when saying specific words. Sometimes there are cuts and sometimes there are pans, but never is there a decision that seems arbitrary or purely for the sake of ease. While Godard's films do own a simple and unashamed quality that might lend itself to less expensive filmmaking, it is clear that his choices serve specific purposes and are always a slave to the greater objectives in the film. One of the most striking scenes in VIVRE SA VIE is where Nana is writing a letter. It is a simple act on which most directors would only spend a few seconds. Instead, Godard places a close-up on the letter and allows the audience to watch the entire process and become engulfed in Nana's (or Karina's) beautiful handwriting and the earnest quality of the letter.

VIVRE SA VIE successfully provides a tidy summary of Godard's quirky brilliance. For those willing to explore his genius, this film is the ideal starting place (if not working chronologically). But be careful. Once his capabilities are discovered, they will never leave you.

89.8

My father had a lot of trouble to explain me what those men were doing, laying against the wall on a busy Sunday street, where there were a number of women in flashy clothes going up and down the street, looking at the men who passed by instead of doing window-shopping like me, and my father. It was 1954, in Lisbon. I came to know the men were pimps, and although I always respected the 'girls who were in the life', the pimp became my pet hate, to this day.

Does Goddard make an outstanding political speech here? I'm not sure. But now I understand why everybody was speaking of his 'Nana' in the Sixties. It's a poignant story, clear and sharp, with no tears but more like a gut punch. Particularly for the (unexpected?) ending. I disagree with those who said that the 12 scenes of the movie are 'unconnected'. They are connected! But the film should be fully appreciated on a second viewing for it, may be. These days, people are not able to cope with this much philosophy in a single film.

It's also a sad world when you discover, in 2001, that this film runs 85 minutes in the USA, 83m in Portugal, and 80m in France (it's so described in "Cinéguide" des Presses de la Cité (ed.1992). France shows the most short of the current versions of this wonderful movie about streetwalkers and pimps, about workers and profiteers; therefore, the most 'cut' or censored version - be it political or commercial censorship. France! the country that represented for me Liberty, Fraternity and Equality, when I was a 6 year-old kid opening his eyes to the beauty of chandeliers in a shop window, the beauty of girls in high-heels and knee-length skirts, and the wrongness of the half part of the world who lived without working, squeezing money of those who worked. Even if the work was - like Nana's - lending her body to other people...