Reviewed by Harvey Karten
 Sony Pictures Classics
 Director: Jacques Rivette
 Writer:  Pascal Bonitzer, Christine Laurent, Jacques Rivette
 Cast: Jeanne Balibar, Sergio Castellitto, Marianne Basler,
Jacques Bonnaffe, Helene De Fougerolles, Bruno Todeschini,
Catherine Rouvel, Claude Berri
 Screened at: Sony NY 8/30/01

   Throughout the protracted running time of Jacques Rivette's
tale, there is much emphasis on a play within a film, that of Luigi
Pirandello's "As You Desire Me."  Pirandello was famous,
perhaps more than any other playwright, for exploring the
difference between illusion and reality.  Perhaps Rivette is
signalling us throughout that the characters he manipulates
through their daily romantic roundelays are living lives of illusion.
They may be fooling their lovers; that's nothing unusual.  But in
many cases they are not aware of their own feelings toward the
men and women in their lives.  Perhaps a better title for a play-
within-film would be "Much Ado About Nothing," because Rivette,
who helmed one of his best-known works twenty-seven years
ago with the wonderful "Celine and Julie Go Boating" (still
overlong, but an involving drama of an alliance between a
magician and a librarian who visit a haunted house and become
involved in the lives of the ghosts), seems to be marking time
with "Va Savoir."   The film is talky, but Jacques Rivette is French
and we expect that.  But darn: the first half is so meandering, as
though the director--who co-write the script with Pascal Bonitzer
and Christine Laurent--wants to make absolutely sure that
everyone in the audience has explored each person's
constitution so that by the time the one great scene, the magical
conclusion, takes place, we can accept the resolution as wholly
earned and deserved.

   "Va Savoir" is if nothing else a highly sophisticated work with
only one scene that could be called in any way "action" (involving
two drunken men playing chicken on a gangplank, the loser
being the one who presumably staggers to his death).  Yet
another tale inspired by the theme of "La Ronde," the story
centers on Camille (Jeanne Balibar), an actress who is bubbly
and vivacious on the stage, neurotic to the point of neurasthenia
at times when off.  Camille is either married or involved in a long-
term affair with director and fellow actor Ugo (Sergio Castellitto),
an Italian who joins her in performances of Pirandello's play in its
native language.  While Camille still has feelings for her former
boy friend, Pierre (Jacques Bonnaffe) and decides after much
soul-searching to visit him though he is living with ballet-teacher
and former thief Sonia (Marianne Basler), Ugo uses some off-
stage time to search for an unpublished play of the 18th century
Italian writer Goldoni, leading him into a relationship with the
young and adorable Do (Helene de Fougerolles).  But Do's life is
complicated by a possible incestuous relationship with her
crooked half-brother Arthur (Bruno Todeschini).

   Watching the performances of Pirandello's play-within-the-film
may give the movie audience a higher regard for the principal
actors--who are thoroughly bilingual in French and Italian (they
perform with an Italian ensemble)--but it's a toss-up which is
more lugubrious: the languid performance of "As You Desire Me"
or what passes for urbane palaver by people who are overly
refined to the point of pretentiousness and beyond.  Who winds
up with whom in the end?  That takes about 135 of the film's 150
minutes to determine.  If only the graceful, plain and sincere
conclusion were woven into the texture of the entire film!

Rated PG-13.  Running time: 150 minutes.  (C) 2001 by
Harvey Karten, film_cri...@compuserve.com

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