Vivre sa Vie

In 1968, film critic Richard Roud wrote that the art of cinema rests on three paradoxes: visual versus narrative, fiction versus documentary, and reality versus abstraction. Perhaps no director has better reconciled these in their work than the late Jean-Luc Godard, whose films never sought to resolve these paradoxes, but to exploit and display them. Godard, a French director, has said that his films are, in essence, self-directed works of film criticism. Few films demonstrate Godard’s dualism of touching narrative and formalist experimentation better than 1962’s “Vivre Sa Vie”, a true chef d’oeuvre of French cinema.

Comprising twelve clearly demarcated “tableaux,” or episodes, “Vivre Sa Vie” tells the story of Nana (Anna Karina), a young parisienne who leaves her husband and slowly descends into prostitution to make ends meet. The episodic structure of “Vivre Sa Vie” allows the movie to avoid a tightly-woven, continuous dramatic plot. Instead, we are given brief glimpses into Nana’s world, each centered around one location or action. One rather straightforwardly depicts Nana’s first experience with a client, others show us a joyous dance through a billiard hall, a letter written over the course of eight minutes, a conversation with a philosopher about love and language (“the more one talks, the less words mean”). These chapters vary in mood, duration, and style, but what unites them is a sense of cold detachment that the world around Nana has towards her. The gray bareness of the city is so immediate that one feels as if Nana’s Paris would appear monochrome even if filmed in color. Her endurant liveliness seems nullified by her uncaring surroundings, manifested both in the blank dreariness of the film’s locations and the objectifying gaze of the film’s male characters. Although she encounters some moments of reciprocated humanity, Nana fails to make any impact on the world around her, almost as if she exists on a different, incompatible plane of existence.

Godard uses his formalist experimentation to accentuate a similar condition present between the viewer and Nana. By playing with the form of the motion picture in certain moments (such as intentionally positioning key action beyond the edge of the frame, alternating between sound and silence, or positioning actors in unrealistic statue-like positions), Godard draws our attention to film’s status as an art. This not only allows for some truly brilliant effects in certain scenes (which I will leave for the viewer to experience), but makes us aware of the divide between ourselves and what is happening on screen. We are upset by the tragedy prevalent in Nana’s life, but there is nothing we can do about it. Just as Nana is isolated from her surroundings by her role as a sex object, we are made aware of her isolation from help from outside the screen. This makes the moments when Karina looks directly into the camera so striking: it almost seems as if she is pleading with us, but as Godard makes us aware by drawing our attention to the medium he is using, we are unable to help her or reach her. We can only gaze and empathize, as Nana herself does in the film when she sees “The Passion of Joan of Arc” (1928) at the cinema. She cries silently at the tragedy on screen, and evidently sees some of herself in Joan of Arc, but ultimately is powerless to do anything about it. That same situation is part of what makes “Vivre Sa Vie” so heartbreaking for me: the isolation Nana feels from both her fictional world, and our reality. Like many of Godard’s other films, this is once again a commentary on film itself and its power as an art.

“Vivre Sa Vie” is a must watch for anyone wading into the vast ocean that is French cinema, a tragic and violent contrast of form and content that makes the film, for me, not just one of the most beautiful films of all time, but one of the greatest works of art I have ever experienced.

Another Round

Danish director Thomas Vinterberg’s 2020 dramatic comedy “Another Round” follows a group of four high school teachers as they conduct an experiment where they live out their daily lives while keeping their blood alcohol level at 0.05. Each participant has a different living situation, and navigates the temptation, pleasure, and downfall that come with alcohol abuse in different ways. In doing so, the film provides a more nuanced depiction of alcoholism than has traditionally been presented in the media.

This is the film's biggest strength: it doesn’t spoonfeed the audience a black and white narrative. The lives of the central characters are boring and dull at the beginning, and are shattered and lonely by the end; they are left to decide whether the pleasure sandwiched between the two phases was worth the anguish of going too far. Where other movies about depression and alcoholism may feel like a PSA, “Another Round” approaches the subject of alcohol in a broader, social context, because ultimately the story isn’t about alcohol, it's about loneliness. One such example of Vinterberg’s nuanced approach to alcohol is the inclusion of a small subplot near the end of the movie. A student is extremely nervous for their final exam and if they don’t pass the exam they won’t be able to graduate. In order to calm the kids' nerves the teacher in charge of the exam, who is also part of the experiment, gives him some alcohol… and it works. What matters is not the substance, but the person, the experience, and the situation.

The setting of the high school is essential, as it juxtaposes the stagnant lives of the teachers with the far more active lives of their students, who have their whole lives ahead of them. This mundane setting also makes the film more relatable, and therefore more immersive. When the experiment is introduced, shifting the film from a melancholic drama to a comedy, you are more open to the idea because the film is finally allowing you to have fun, just as the characters are as well. While watching, you are tempted towards the vice of alcohol within the film, which in turn helps you understand how the characters are feeling. It masterfully shifts from tone to tone to create that ultimate mesmeric experience.

What makes the film a technical marvel is how it imbues these tones with corresponding levels of energy with the score, cinematography and editing. It can be slow moving, with wide shots and infrequent cuts accompanied with gloomy jazz. But at other times it can be filled with handheld whip pans, fast cuts, and loud dance pop. Although these visual/audio changes may seem jarring on paper, the film does a great job of transitioning between its various emotional phases. One of these ways is by making the characters interact with the motifs, such as bodies of water, in a way corresponding to the energy of the scene; providing thematic consistency .

Mads Mikkelsen, who plays the lead role of Martin, is the highlight of the movie. He brings everything to the table with an absolutely spectacular and moving performance of an entirely unspectacular and ordinary man. He does more unleashed, dramatic scenes, but the powerful moments are those where you see his discontent and loneliness come out in small ways. The way he moves, talks, and even stands still evokes a sadness that is hard to describe… a man who doesn’t see better days ahead of him or looks forward to things, he just exists. Equal parts a broad social commentary and a touching personal story, “Another Round” is a Danish blessing to the drama genre.