Dipping My Toes in French New Wave: Vivre Sa Vie and Au Hasard Balthazar

This week brought another Godard film, and a donkey film from Robert Bresson. This month is going faaaaaaaaast, and I'm sad that I only have two spots left to fill. French New Wave makes me happy, which is kinda funny because all of the films have been sad. I'm definitely enjoying this little marathon...

That's two out of two for Godard so far. While I really enjoyed Breathless, Vivre Sa Vie has been the stand out for me. It is told in twelve chapters, as it follows young Nana (Anna Karina) and her descent into prostitution. Breathless was a film that was dripping with style, but Vivre Sa Vie had that one extra factor that made it more interesting to watch. First of all, I loved Anna Karina. She just oozed this air of style from the way her eyelashes batted about and her hair formed that spectacular bob on her head - basically, she was my idea of everything stylish from the 60s. Plus, that dancing scene of hers completely one me over. The story that she performed was devastating, though. Nana was such a sweet, quite naive girl who needed to make ends meet, which unfortunately turned her to doing something that extreme. However, Godard doesn't handle the prostitution as a way of making us feel only pity for Nana. We're drawn into her world, where we find out the ins and outs of the job, and how the people doing it interact with each other. Again, it is the documentary feel that Godard achieved with Breathless, and achieved with this one, too. Instead of making this an overly melodramatic film about a woman's sad descent into something she does out of desperation, it is basically a close up on what can happen to a person. A real person. Not a movie character.

One of the things I loved the most about this film, though, was how philosophical it was. There was one particular chapter towards the end which had Nana talking to an old man at a restaurant. I can't really explain how wonderful this scene is - just the words thrown back and forth are so beautiful, so meaningful, and so interesting. In fact, I really want to get a transcript of this conversation to read every single day for the rest of my life, just to remind me of the little things I always forget. And at least six times a year I want to revisit this film to remind me of everything else that I always forget. It's that amazing.

Dipping My Toes in French New Wave: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and Breathless

It has been an interesting week since my first entry, with lots of people answering my call and recommending lots of New Wave flicks. Super happy about it, guys, but the unfortunate thing is that I won't be able to watch everything you recommend by the end of the month. I only have eight spots, and half of them have been filled already! However, I'll continue on this education in the many years of life I still hopefully have to live. Anyway, this week's pickings were the musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, and Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless.

I consider myself to be quite the fan of musicals. Sure, 80% of them are really cheesy, but if the cheese is melted you right, I can't think of anything more fun. Then there's the other side to musicals: you know, Les Misberables, The Phantom of the Opera etc. These films bring sadness to songs, making heartache mean something so different. And you know what? I love it just as much as I love to see people dancing around in buses in the middle of the day. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is unlike anything I've seen before, though. This film does not have a spoken word of dialogue: everything is sung. I was very confused as to whether this was a New Wave film, since it didn't really look like any of the other ones, but then I realised that it was quite an experiment. It was very hard to get into the fact that no-one was going to just talk to each other, but once I came around, this more was a brilliant experience. As brilliant as it was, though, it was absolutely devastating.

The basic story is that young Geneviève (Catherine Deneuve, who is like my new favourite actress), who lives with her mother at an umbrella shop, secretly falls in love with Guy (Nino Castelnuovo), which her mother disapproves of. Guy is sent off to war, and when he leaves Geneviève discovers that she is pregnant. While he is gone, the wealthy Roland Cassard (Marc Michel) falls in love with her, and offers to marry her and bring the child up as his own. The film is absolutely heart-breaking. And it is simple heart-break, too, which is made even more heart-breaking by the way song and music is weaved into the plot. In fact, just thinking about it now makes my heart hurt a little. However, while the film is doused in sadness, it is extremely beautiful to look at. The 60's were such a colourful era, and director Jacques Demy uses colour to it's full extent. The art direction is beautifully bright and vibrant - for example, the house that Geneviève and her mother live in is filled with pastel pinks and purples, instead of boring creams like most houses. My eyes had a love affair with this movie. Which makes it the ultimate paradox: even though this movie made me hopelessly sad, I am helplessly in love with it.