Va Savoir (Widescreen)

This film runs 154 minutes which is about the length of most epics. This however is not an epic and though an excellent story(once it gets going)it will tire and try the patience of even the most devoted Rivette loyalists. I like this film and am glad to have stayed the course with it but Rivette could have given us filmgoers a little more to look at(most shots are interiors of hotels or apartments) for those 2 1/2 hours. That said this film in every other way succeeds and on a very high level.
The story: In true new wave fashion the movie has no real starting point. The characters are at first met at some distance as we see them in their professional roles as actors. Slowly we see them in more relaxed settings and slowly we get to know them. The key word is slowly because for all the attention that must be paid the true payoffs don't start coming til approximately half way through the movie. It takes Rivette awhile (perhaps too long) to set up all the various situations/relationships but once set up the movies pace picks up. The lead actress plays a leading actress and how you feel about this movie will largely be determined by how you feel about her because everything pivots around her. The actress is not particualarly attractive and it takes awhile to begin to find her fascinating but she is that. In love with her director and in love with her ex her main emotion is indeciciveness. Not passion nor desire or anything excting just uncertainty. Interestingly however the other characters are equally indecisive. They are all indecisive in a different way and that makes this film farcical even though you rarely find yourself laughing at this human comedy. What is most memorable about the picture is how well eacg character is brought to us. Rivette is great with detail and nuance and you have to be with a picture like this. Every character has some aspect which will capture your interest and though the plot does not take you anywhere there is an arrival at the end. An arrival at a kind of understanding that allows for peoples complexities to coexist and that makes this film experience a very civilized one. Rivette makes insightful use of the theatre in Va Savoir. The theatre is the place we ask the big questions about love and identity but life is not written out for us ahead of time so life is the even more uncertain cinema-theatre we actors all occupy. Rivette finds both art and life are richest when in most intimate contact with one another. In the end you will feel enlivened by that spirit of understanding and glad to have given your time to this epic length look at intimacy.

I have one criterion for judging movies: Good ones, like good music, good food, and good sex get better the more you do them.I didn't say perfect. But then there has never been a perfect film or a perfect anything created by a human being, has there?

"Va Savoir," an idiom which I would rather translate into "go figure" rather than the parenthetical "who knows?" you find in every reference to this French version of a modern Shakepearean comedy where all the knots and tangles created by human ineptitude and benevolent chance are harmoniously resolved by the final act, is a good film. I've seen it three times and have enjoyed each viewing for different reasons.
One is the language. I should say languages. Please see the undubbed version so you can hear the sonorous prosody of Italian contrasted with the tubular perscussiveness of French spoken by the bilingual cast.
I like everyone's face.Every one is natural.
There's nothing gross about the way love and affection are expressed.It's subtle and funny. The music doesn't get in the way.
It has a happy ending.

When I saw "Va Savoir" in theaters, I loved it so much that I stayed in my seat for the next showing (with the film's lethargic 154-min running time, that's around 5 hours or so) and I enjoyed every second of it. I just love the characters in this film. The way they talk, the dialogue, the situations and places they find themselves in, all of it magical. I do not understand people saying the film is enjoyable, but not heavy or a "major Rivette", which I wholeheartedly disagree with (I find this to be Rivette's best work since "La Belle Noiseuse"). I have seen the film around 6 or 7 times and have yet to tire of it. For anyone looking for a charming, intelligent, hugely entertaining, and romantic movie...this is it. Highly recommended.