Tuesday 24 May 2011

Vivre sa vie

The thing about Vivre sa vie (1962) is that I love it so much, already when I was a teenager and still today. This is partly because Anna Karina is playing the lead, as Nana S. She may be the best thing about Jean-Luc Godard's films (and definitely preferable to his politics). But there's much more than her presence. In keeping with the spirit of the film I'll just make twelve points,:

1) the film is set and shot in Paris

2) each chapter the film consists of (12 in all) is rather weakly connected to what comes before and after, but still it manages to tell a moving story

3) the music by Georges Delerue is lovely (and the primary reason why the film is so moving)

4) the film is rather relaxed, both playful and serious

5) Nana works in a record store

6) besides being an enchanting portrait of Nana, it is also a condemnation of sort of the role of money in society

7) sometimes the camera is focused on Nana, sometimes it drifts off, either to the left or to the right

8) in one chapter Nana gets abandoned by her date in a pool hall so she starts a jukebox and dances around the pool table

9) in one chapter Nana says to an old man (Brice Parain) that he looks bored and asks if she can join him and then they start to discuss art, love and truth

10) Brice Parain actually is a philosopher, or was when he was alive

11) in one chapter, which is shot with the camera high above, looking down, Nana comes to the courtyard to try and gain entrance to her previous apartment and in the upper right hand corner of the image a young girl is leaning against a wall while in front of her a equally young boy is dancing, possibly twisting

12) it can be seen as the middle part of a trilogy, the first part being The Passion of Joan of Arc (La passion de Jeanne d'Arc 1928) and the third part being Set Me Free (Emporte-moi 1999)


"Your 'I love' is an impure affair. But to be completely at one with what you love, you need maturity. That means searching. This is the truth of life. That's why love is a solution, on condition that it is true."