User Reviews

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?

Some years ago Sophie Marceau explained her move to Hollywood in more or less the following terms: I am tired of doing the same French movies where all in all there is a love triangle and in the end the three of them have dinner together. Well, Va savoir is exactly that kind of movie. It is more complicated because there are actually four love triangles, but yes, they all have a cake to share in the end; all the six people who were involved in the triangles. So nothing new here. The good thing, however, are the characters. Except for the brother-and-sister duo who are kind of stereotypical and possibly present the spectator with the cliché of male and female libertine Parisians, the other two couples arouse our curiosity with their insufficiencies: Camille is a little too absent-minded to be completely sane, Pierre is a typical academic dork who falls into furies of sophisticated frustration, Ugo visibly carries the burden of his unattractive appearance and compensates for it with his thick Italian accent, while Sonia obstinately tries to keep to the level of those intellectual pricks and prove how much more she knows about real life. This is a good melodrama if you like the genre. I do, and I liked it. Marceau probably wouldn't.

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.

Having read many of the comments of "Va Savoir" here, (admittedly mostly from the other side of the Atlantic), I was surprised by the amount of hostility towards this film.

Whilst I admit that it may have benefited from a little judicious editing, perhaps down to around two hours, this seems to me to be a well acted and entertaining slice of french life. The fact that the main characters are involved in the theatre is entirely secondary since their "real" lives depicted here are infinitely more interesting than the characters being portrayed in the Pirandello play. Perhaps that was the point.

There are enough sub-plots and unanswered questions relating to the fully rounded, three dimensional characters to keep the average viewer engrossed for the length of the film. They do not conform to stereotypes and it is not possible to pigeon-hole them. We find out much more about them as the film progresses. This is a film about people, their interwoven histories, and the formation of new relationships.

Jeanne Balibar's performance, seemed to me, complex and mature. Initially, I found her portrayal cold and unemotional, but this I believe was intentional and as the film progresses, she is revealed as a complicated and enigmatic character, capable of intense emotions but also of granting sexual favours just to create a diversion.

There is also a fine performance from Sergio Castellitto as Ugo, entirely convincing, except perhaps in his refusal to bed the truly delicious "Do" played by a ravishing Hélène de Fougerolles, (surely another French actress destined for greatness). Indeed, Jacques Rivette seems to have nurtured excellent performances all round.

Whilst this is not a perfect film, it offers more than enough to warrant a few short hours of your time. This is a fine French film, which will remain in your memory for sometime to come and compared with much of Hollywood's current output, is a mature and thought-provoking piece of film making. Open a good bottle of red Bordeaux and settle down with its cinematic equivalent.

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.

While in Paris in a tour of the Italian play "Como Tu Mi Vuoi", the lead actress Camille (Jeanne Balibar), who is living with the director Ugo Bassani (Sergio Castellitto), recalls and misses her former love Pierre (Jacques Bonnaffé). She visits his apartment and meets his present mate Sonia (Marianne Basler). Meanwhile Ugo is searching a lost play by Goldoni, and meets the charming French Dominique (Hélène de Fougerolles) that helps him to find it in her mother's private library. Meanwhile, Do's smalltime crook stepbrother Arthur (Bruno Todeschini) seduces Sonia to steal her expensive ring.

I saw "Va Savoir" with great expectation, but I was quite disappointed with this pointless film. The charming cast and the good direction are lost in a promising story that goes nowhere. I do not dare to say that it was a complete waste of time, but I regret the terrible conclusion, which gives the impression that the writer got lost with the entwined romances. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Quem Sabe?" ("Who Knows?")

The play within a play ploy is used in Go Figure to excellent effect. The play is an eighteenth century farce performed by an Italian acting troupe visiting Paris. The farce utilizes six characters, the optimal number to engage in romantic mix-ups, flirtations, and other amorous stuff. And lo and behold, Go Figure itself contains six persons who engage in romantic mix-ups, flirtations, and crimes, both physical and of the heart.

There's the lead actress and her stage manager husband; she, who walked out on her now married ex-lover, whom she meets for the first time in three years (as well as his wife). Rounding out the six are two siblings, one a sexy young lady, the other her caddish older brother. There's jewel theft, a hunt for a missing manuscript, jealousy, and the falling in and out of love. And in the backdrop the acting troupe struggles to remains solvent.

All this is served up in, what I would call a French style. Of course I've not seen that many French romantic comedies, but I can state that were this in the hands of an American 'Hollywood' director it would be an entirely different film. And probably not nearly as good. In Rivette's hands all the action and interactions seem natural and light. There's no 'look at me' style of acting; it's almost understated. And this makes for a very enjoyable viewing that loses little on the small screen.

Self-obsessed tedium of thespo lovey spouting melodramatic drivelling monologues is presumably par for the course with a film centred around a neurotic has-been stage actress. Aside from that, the sub-plots, particularly the relationship between the young academic woman and the play's director, and her assistance in his quest for long-lost script, are far more engaging than the main plot. The tender tension of their relationship and the director's (almost) single-minded drive for literary holy grail salvage an otherwise disappointing film.

This was very good film. Although it was lengthy, the events never slowed down. There was always a progression of the plot from scene to scene and the characters are well-figured into their surroundings. If anyone knows the piano melody played during the opening credits, and I believe also in the first ballet teaching scene where Sonia and Arthur talk, PLEASE tell me the name of the piano piece, its wonderful and I HAVE TO KNOW WHAT IT IS! I must say that the film is overall brilliant and very refreshing from the modern Hollywood films I am usually exposed to. The best part of the movie in my opinion was how all the pieces of the plot are connected and resolved at the end, leaving me with an appreciation for just how perfect the plot was. There are also unusually funny moments in the movie that provide for a breath of air since the film is not very fast paced and long. PLEASE SOMEONE FIGURE OUT THE PIANO PART IN THE OPENING CREDITS.

This is another classical-french comedy movie. Very strong characters and an intrigant plot with lots of twists and crossed-stories. The dialogues are very consistent and funny almost all the time. The end of the film, is excellent!

I really appreciated this film.

This film has pretensions of being an art film. I am a believer that art should delight and entertain as a result of its excellence. The reality of "Va Savoir" is that it delivers an absolutely dreadful movie, badly made with insipid performances. VERRRRRY boring and overly long. This movie is not a pleasure to watch, which disqualifies it as art, in my view.

In an brazen attempt to grab the viewer's interest, the makers of the movie inserted a shower scene with Jeanne Balibar followed by a flash of her muffy, around the middle of the film. The shower scene doesn't clarify or advance the plot. Plus Ms. Balibar's scrawny body is the wrong subject for this desperate attempt at commercialism. When gratuitous nudity fails to redeem a movie for me, then there's something definitely wrong.

My French isn't fluent, so I must watch French films in subtitles. I still enjoy following the French soundtrack and evaluating the quality of the English translation. The subtitling of "Va Savoir" is generally good, using the best colloquial English equivalent to the French. Some of the rawer French is slightly sanitized, however. Unfortunately, the soundtrack for the subtitled version I saw was muffled and indistinct. I prefer subtitled foreign films to dubbed movies to hear the expression of the actors delivering their lines. The soundtrack of the version I watched was so bad that I couldn't connect with what the actors were trying to convey. Or perhaps there wasn't anything to convey.

The Italian play didn't add to any understanding of the film. These scenes could have done with some heavy editing and perhaps something coherent could have emerged. Jeanne Balibar's Italian sounded synthetic, monotonous and wooden to me. I don't know Italian stage conventions but Sergio Castellitto was quite expressive in the play. In fact, to see how to show expression in one's second language, one need look no further than Sergio Castellitto's performance in the French language. As a final comment, I've had enough of the genre of actors portraying actors. To me, that's not a stretch. It's not just the French that bore me with this kind of story. Hollywood and the TV Networks fall into the trap of displaying their own tiny little world. When an actor or actress does working class and does it realistically, then that's art. Check out "Frankie and Johnny", "Tampopo" or "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" for the best of the working poor on film.

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."

"Va Savoir (Who knows?)" is for Eric Rohmer fans, though it's even slower and with less humor than Rohmer's intellectually romantic talk fests.

Director Pierre Rivette is a contemporary of Rohmer's whose penchant for long, slow films has hampered his success in the U.S. And I guess this is his most accessible film, as the last half-hour suddenly becomes sweeter and filled with coincidences so the interplays of three couples become intertwined almost in a drawing-room comedy.

But first are all kinds of references that went way over my head as I hadn't realized until late in the movie that the play that we keep seeing long chunks being performed in Italian by one of the couples is a Pirandello piece, with the gimmick here that we sort of see it backwards, mostly from the last scene to the start, so I missed some points.

The well-acted characters do get more and more interesting as we slowly learn surprises about them such that we start rooting for different combinations than we started out understanding.

It doesn't help that the subtitles are stiffly translated by a non-native English speaker, such that "kimono" is translated as "kimono" instead of as "bathrobe" or "l'aggression' as "aggression" instead of "a fight."

(originally written 10/21/2001)

If your attention-span is severely traumatized by Police Academy then best give this one a miss. Keeping track of all the separate threads is like keeping track of individual strands of spaghetti after it's doused in sauce. On the other hand if you make the effort you may decide it's worth it. In one sense it revolves around Camille (Jeanne Balibar) a French actress back on French soil for the first time in three years via a European tour of Pirandello's As You Desire Me. Camille is, in fact, the first thing we see as a pin-spot picks her out of the darkness reinforcing the theatrical quality we are in for. Ostensibly an item with Ugo (Sergio Castellitto) the director of the play and leading actor opposite her, Camille has it in mind to look up her ex-lover, a Professor of Philosophy who, in the interim has married and become a devoted husband. Neither is Ugo as open as he might be about his quest for a lost manuscript by Goldoni and the young girl Dominique who is 'helping' him in this quest. The plot thickens when we learn that Dominique's brother, Arthur, is not only enamored of the Professor's wife but has eyes also for an expensive ring she wears. Rivette and his two screenwriters - both, incidentally, actors themselves - keep the balls spinning and throw in a series of set-pieces as well as ringing the changes on duets, trios and quartets a la opera bouffe and all is resolved a la Shakespeare when le tout ensemble come together in the empty theater and dance off into the night as a haunting lyric performed by Peggy Lee implies that this is not the end of anything. Jeanne Balibar is the main attraction, Castellitto, so warm in Mostly Martha, turns down the heat on his natural charm but still turns in a solid performance. At two and a half hours it's clearly not for everyone but if you're one of those it IS for then this is for you (and let's face it, could Pirandello himself have put it better).

Va savoir is a film that could be skipped by someone living in New

York City, Chicago, or Los Angeles. We get only a handful of

French films each year in Upstate New York, and I try to see them

all. At 154 minutes, this movie does tend to run on. Still, the

legendary Jacques Rivette is known for his l*o*n*g running times;

he probably considers this 2 1/2 hour film to be a short.

I have noticed that the great majority of people who rated the film

are men. This surprises me, because there is nothing about Va

Savoir that would make it a traditionally "men's film." I would think

people of either gender would be pleased that all three female

leads are presented as capable women leading productive

lives--actor, dance teacher, graduate student. Rivette has chosen

three women who are fascinating to watch on the screen; this to

me was the strength of the film. I think the men fared less well--in

fact, it is hard to believe that three such competent and attractive

women would be drawn to men who appeared (at least to me) to

be far inferior to them. (One character--Arthur--probably has

anti-social personality disorder, is a compulsive gambler and has

incestuous feelings towards his sister. Other than that he's OK.)

My suggestion--don't go to this film expecting "Rules of the Game," but see it because it is French, it is directed by Jacques Rivette,

and it gives ample screen time to three excellent female actors.

Critic Roger Ebert said something like: One 'settles into' this movie and the characters, even though not much else 'happens.' He, and perhaps some others, seemed to like "Va Savoir" and its "settling-in" requirements of the audience. I DID see what they meant--- one does kind of settle-in to the thing, and find a bit of texture, even a bit of depth and fleeting, moderate interest from time to time. Overall, I kind of, almost, liked it. But I also found the movie dull superficial. I was more bored and impatient with the story than intrigued. Contrast this movie with the superior Italian movie "Bread and Tulips."

"B&T" is equally "non-eventfull," in that film style that somehow is supposed to convey reality and "art" to us, but "B&T" is vastly more interesting than "Va Savoir." "Va Savoir" was tiresomely thin and drawn out, like a Rotary Club luncheon speaker who just takes forever to make the most trivial of points. "B&T" was innocent and fresh. It not only embodied the vaunted artsy "anti-movie" naturalness, it also vibrates with sexuality, beauty, charm, and grace. I truly LOVED "B&T," and plan to buy my own DVD copy when I can afford it. "Va Savoir," on the other hand, is "OK," but I wouldn't even want to SEE it again, let alone own it.

A touring theatre group are performing in Paris. The film switches between the actors' performances on stage and their lives off stage. Off stage we are treated to amusing, farcical situations involving secret desires, infidelity, confused relationships and dishonesty. Things settle down nicely by the end of the film.

A light and amusing film with entertaining characters that interlink well with each other. An enjoyable main plot with creative sub plots. The idea of a play within a play is nothing new but it's generally well done here. The film is perhaps too long for the story it is telling. An entertaining film but not a classic.

The cover of the box said it was a comedy. NOT ONE funny moment, I assure you. Bad acting, especially the main brunette girl who is unfortunately also extremely uninteresting to look at. Static indoor shots of people standing and talking to each other. (Only one good exterior shot, on the Seine.) You can practically hear the director shouting action at the top of each shot, it looks so stagey.

I had no idea the French and American sensibilities could be so far afield of each other. Did French audiences really laugh at this.

MANY YEARS AGO I bought a bottle of wine 3 or 4 times the price I usually paid. Expecting something akin to the gods' nectar I got just wine, very disappointing at first then I gradually realised I could drink this for the rest of my life and it would always only taste of wine, but always as a renewed experience, never tiring on the palette. Since then I have had the privilege of drinking comparable wines from France or Italy and grown tired of wines from elsewhere that shout ''I will astonish you' ' yet forget they aught to taste of wine. After Va Savoir I remember I watched a film. Was there direction or camera or cutting? Disappointment at first and wanting 'astonish me', instead I got Film; pure perfect film. By the end I felt very grown up. At the end I wished it had been somewhat longer: The first half hour took an hour the subsequent two hours took half that time!

One could consider this film like a cinematic whole-wheat pancake. Your film comes topped with butter, syrup, and all the fruits you can think of (the characters of the film). When it is presented originally Va Savoir looks tantalizingly delicious, but after ten minutes of eating you realize that you finished and still hungry. You realize that this mound of goodness was nothing more than fluffy cooked dough that will ultimately make you fat, lazy, and sleepy. While it may give you a high at first, the darkness of the inevitable 'sugar-low' is fast approaching and causing you to grab your stomach in disgust. Also, it was a flop. Perhaps that was a bit overboard, but I really wanted to explain this film in a way that was a bit more entertaining than the film itself. To put it bluntly, this film was like watching the grass grow in your back yard in anticipation of having to mow it again. It was slow, not very colorful, and a pain to sit through. When it finally gets too long, it hurts too much to do it again, but you know it must be done. That feeling is exactly how I felt about the film Va Savoir.

This is a devoutly character based film. To make a deeply rooted character based film to work, you must first have exciting characters that you know your audience is going to want to follow. Sadly, this was not the case in this film. From the opening scene (where the subtitles were not working on my DVD) all the way till the final moments of the film, we have to follow four of the dullest characters in cinematic history. Cammille is our pilot, following an emotion and feeling that is never quite developed in the story and therefore never quite developed in her. Her mannerisms and reactions to situations made me feel as if she was a bit on the loony side. Perhaps it was the way that Jeanne Balibar chose to play her, but there was nothing making me believe that Cammille was a very strong character. Her actions throughout the film prove that much, but what are her motives and reasonings? That is never explained or developed, yet there was three hours to do it. Strange. This goes the same for Sonia, who I also never really fully grasped onto. She seemed to be in love, but at the same time enjoying moments with Arthur. Her need to rearrange made me think that her and Cammille had similar personalities (loony), which is what made them become friends near the end. Yet, again, it was never explained. We, the audience, were forced to follow a lot of assumptions in this film, and whenever we felt that we fully understood and connected with a character, Rivette would pull us further away. It was as if he never really wanted us to fully understand them, but still accept them. That didn't brood well with me.

Couple this with random intermissions of the play that these performers are putting on for the Parisians only helps to confuse the audience. I couldn't tell if Cammille was actually acting in the play or just walking through the lines. Half the time it looked as if it bothered her to be there. There was no emotion or excitement when she was on stage prompting me to question whether she was this 'infamous' actress that they claimed her to be. I have seen several foreign films in my lifetime, but this one takes the cake as possibly the longest passenger car to Dullsville. I had trouble understanding the play that was happening throughout the film, thus causing me to care less about the characters. The final thirty minutes of this movie are actually fun. The scenes where Pierre and Ugo decide to duel are hysterical. I actually watched this scene over again because I enjoyed it so much. The connections made at the end tied the film up nicely, but still left too many questions unanswered.

Overall, I was lost in this film. If you ever pick up this film and you see a blonde-hair, blue-eyes 26-year old wandering through the scenes, it is I just trying to understand this film. I can't figure it out, I can understand most Lynch, Gilliam, and others of the 'jigsaw puzzle' genre, but this was just beyond my control. The characters seemed drab and never fully comfortable in their roles, and those that were jumped between emotions like playing leapfrog in kindergarten. The stories were connected well, but it didn't make any difference if the characters (the glue of the stories) didn't hold them together. In your eyes, and in your DVD player, you can see where this film just falls apart. If you are looking for a stronger emotional powerhouse film where characters work with their characters and push the envelope even further, I would check out Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia. This film reminded me of Magnolia except bad.

I don't suggest anyone wasting their three hours on this film, but who am I except a lost guy in this film.

Again, if found, please return!

Grade: * out of *****

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.