Now who doesn't enjoy a healthy dose of French, 'Nouvelle Vague' existentialism on a rainy Sunday afternoon? Well, I must confess I was initially a little apprehensive about 'Vivre sa Vie', a twelve tableaux, New Wave film directed by Jean-Luc Godard. Not that I haven't immensely enjoyed many of his other works but the write up on the DVD made it sound far more inaccessible and 'out there' than it actually was. The use of tableaux helped tremendously with the flow and understanding and gave the movie the effect of being more like a play whilst providing a direct view into the mind's eye of the filmmaker.
Vivre sa Vie is certainly less plot driven than character driven - but what do you expect? This is French New Wave people! Essentially one becomes immersed in the life and lifestyle, thoughts, feelings and attitudes of Nana Kleinfrankenheim (played excellently by Anna Karina); a young woman who has left an unhappy marriage, and her child, and is seeking more in life. Apparently Godard specifically chose Karina for his main character believing her lack of acting experience would contribute to her natural 'awkwardness; it did, and very effectively too. Nana is dissatisfied with her lot and aspires to become an actress as she works, with extreme indifference, in a low paid sales position. She finds herself without enough money to make ends meet and that is where her descent into a seedier, harder life begins. Throughout the movie, Nana's personality vacillates wildly between apathy, coquettishness, genuine sadness, sultriness, sheer awkwardness and hard-nosed conviction. I particularly enjoyed the tableaux where she meets an older man in a café and they start a conversation which leads to philosophical enquiry. Although Nana has no knowledge of the subject, her enquiries and questions lead to her philosophizing, albeit for a brief period of time. This is one of the rare scenes where Nana becomes genuinely animated and exuberant and one sees that she is truly an innocent, whose various 'masks' are just that; a way of appearing that she has her life together, knows what she's doing and doesn't care about the consequences.
The cinematography and atmosphere of sa Vie is beautiful, brooding and captivating; some scenes consisting solely of the back of peoples' heads, their reflections in mirrors and their thoughts only spoken in their heads. If you fancy stepping back in time to 1960s Paris, where everyone is impeccably chic all the time, where people seemingly inhale more smoke than oxygen and where one can revel in a fiesta of ennui, seediness, desperation, innocence and stark realism - then you are going to love this movie!
Vivre sa Vie is certainly less plot driven than character driven - but what do you expect? This is French New Wave people! Essentially one becomes immersed in the life and lifestyle, thoughts, feelings and attitudes of Nana Kleinfrankenheim (played excellently by Anna Karina); a young woman who has left an unhappy marriage, and her child, and is seeking more in life. Apparently Godard specifically chose Karina for his main character believing her lack of acting experience would contribute to her natural 'awkwardness; it did, and very effectively too. Nana is dissatisfied with her lot and aspires to become an actress as she works, with extreme indifference, in a low paid sales position. She finds herself without enough money to make ends meet and that is where her descent into a seedier, harder life begins. Throughout the movie, Nana's personality vacillates wildly between apathy, coquettishness, genuine sadness, sultriness, sheer awkwardness and hard-nosed conviction. I particularly enjoyed the tableaux where she meets an older man in a café and they start a conversation which leads to philosophical enquiry. Although Nana has no knowledge of the subject, her enquiries and questions lead to her philosophizing, albeit for a brief period of time. This is one of the rare scenes where Nana becomes genuinely animated and exuberant and one sees that she is truly an innocent, whose various 'masks' are just that; a way of appearing that she has her life together, knows what she's doing and doesn't care about the consequences.
The cinematography and atmosphere of sa Vie is beautiful, brooding and captivating; some scenes consisting solely of the back of peoples' heads, their reflections in mirrors and their thoughts only spoken in their heads. If you fancy stepping back in time to 1960s Paris, where everyone is impeccably chic all the time, where people seemingly inhale more smoke than oxygen and where one can revel in a fiesta of ennui, seediness, desperation, innocence and stark realism - then you are going to love this movie!