"Va Savoir" offers many pleasures, but none so rare or satisfying as the chance to watch a film find itself. For this masterful celebration starts off slowly, even uncertainly, giving no hint of the rich and elegant exploration of love, jealousy and animal attraction it will in all good time become.
If that final phrase sounds a bit Shakespearean, it should. Though quintessentially French (it takes place during a week in Paris), by its close "Va Savoir" has the unmistakable feeling of one of the playwright's irresistible multi-character romantic comedies, grounded in preposterous coincidence and silly contrivance but finally elevated from farce to transcendence by an overarching spirit of warmth, complicity and compassion.
It's not surprising that the director who devised this confection is 73--this kind of casual proficiency often comes with age--but having an accessible film at a relatively manageable length from French New Wave pioneer Jacques Rivette is a departure.
Speaking at Cannes, where the film was rapturously received but, inevitably, denied awards because of its openness and joy, Rivette explained that he worked here the way he has for decades: employing a methodthat allows his actors greater range and his characters a depth and complexity that's absent from more ordinary films.
Working with frequent collaborators Pascal Bonitzer and Christine Laurent, Rivette came up with a 15-page outline setting out in broad strokes "Va Savoir's" story of the delicious complications that result when three men and three women tangle up their romantic lives, bouncing off each other like molecules, combining and recombining, attracting and resisting. "The details," the director explained, "are all filled in as the actors take possession of their roles."
The technique, at least in Rivette's hands, allows characters to become richer, more indisputably themselves. It makes it easier to be drawn into their lives, to sink fully into their quests and their uncertainties.
Because they are so well-grounded, there's no problem following them into circumstances that mock the bounds of plausibility.
"Va Savoir" begins simply enough, with a French actress named Camille (Jeanne Balibar) who is returning to Paris after an absence of three years for a one-week engagement of a play by Pirandello. She's now the star of an Italian theater troupe and in a relationship with Ugo (Sergio Castellitto), her director, co-star and the group's leader.
