VIVRE SA VIE (French) (1962)

“There is truth in everything, even in error.”

“Someone may discover me one day…” said Nana to his boyfriend in the initial scene. For her Love is something like mirage and she is a kind of woman who’s desperately needing it. She has no fixed address, and her life is full of unfulfilled desires; to be a film actress, to get true love, to live a decent life. But life is so hard for her and with unfavorable circumstances around her she starts selling her body in the streets of Paris.

‘Vivre Sa Vie’ (My life to live) is Jean Luc Godard’s an episodic account of a short life of a young Parisian prostitute. The film consists of just 12 scenes with the duration of less than one and half hours. The scenes punctuate the conventional narrative and with Raoul Coutard’s aesthetic camerawork makes it one of the classic of new wave cinema. The scenes which I like most are Nana’s encounter with the first man in the hotel room and her discussion with philosopher regarding silence and speech. The ending part was shocking and tragic but that’s quite abrupt ending in my opinion. The film is regarded as one of the JLG’s mature work in treatment; it’s both supremely analytical and sensuous achieving a sheer aesthetic pleasure.

Anna Karina’s had one of the finest expressive & photogenic faces and the most beautiful pair of eyes and Godard knows how to exploit it with some gazing camera close ups with vulnerable women characteristic. So far in all Godard films her character wins our sympathy among all others, needless to say she looks heavenly beauty in all of them. Her beauty is something which grows in every next film I see and her character here is so mythic one i.e. the scene where she’s crying watching Dreyer’s silent classic makes it aesthetic at one and spiritual at next.

It’s difficult to rate artistic pleasure accomplished by Godard & Anna Karina.