Salubfoto It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Antonius Block There is a bleakness to this movie, which has a pretty and thoughtful young woman (Anna Karina), living in beautiful Paris, and yet descending into prostitution following a break-up. Director Jean-Luc Godard gives us twelve vignettes that are intentionally simple and unassuming to paint the picture. It's worth seeing, but at least for me, there are better French New Wave pictures, and certainly less depressing ones.Anna Karina is lovely but I don't think she delivered a lot of range in this performance. One major exception early on in her new job is when she desperately tries to avoid a customer's kiss on the mouth. The look in her eyes as she squirms around is heart-rending, and disabuses us of any ooh-la-la fantasies we may have about her in this role. Another nice scene is when she dances to a jukebox song with awkward cuteness, trying to entice the few men watching her.To his credit, Godard is unflinching in his honesty, and there is no sentimentality here. I loved the thoughtful scenes, the one where she's in the theater watching the 1928 Carl Theodor Dreyer film 'The Passion of Joan of Arc', and then later picking an older man's brain about philosophy in a café. The street scenes in Paris were nice to see, though sometimes the film comes close to descending into a home movie project. Godard was making a point about the realities of life, and employing new filmmaking techniques while telling the story. It doesn't always make for great entertainment though, such as the section that's almost a mini-documentary on prostitution in Paris at the time. The ending is also ridiculously abrupt; it is a grand statement but to me borders on pretentiousness. Is it over-compensating for not showing some of the more painful aspects of prostitution along the way? (STD's, being beaten up, being degraded, etc?). Until then, with the exception of the attempted kiss scene, the 'insight' we get is mostly just a beautiful model being bored by her tricks. From Godard, I much preferred 'Masculin Feminin' (1966), so if you're new to him, I would start there instead. You may also try the Truffaut film we see on the marquee of a theater towards the end, 'Jules and Jim' (1962), which was a nice little tip of the cap to his fellow director.

adrin-65078 See Adrin Neatrour crits at www.crinklecut.co.uk After the opening title sequence Godard's Vivre sa vie cuts to a long durational close shot in which the camera, tracks between a couple who are seated beside each other on bar stools at the counter of a café. They are talking about the nature of their relationship and its break up. As the camera tracks back and forth across the space between them, only one of them is ever in frame, and the shot set up is from behind, so that as they talk, we see only the back of a head.The what is said by this shot is in itself both witty and analytic. It allows the camera to express the opening concepts of alienation, separation within a context of movement. The wit lies in emotionally de-saturating the dialogue from faciality as Nana and her ex talk about the failure of their relationship her beef about his attempts to control her and his economic angle as Nana's ex signs off with the observation that as a musician, Nana is leaving him because he is poor. The ultimate deficiency in a culture based on consumption rather than production.With Anna K playing the role of Nana Godard's film is in content, a modernist rephrasing of Zola's eponymous novel charting the transformation of a young operetta star into a high class prostitute, whose allure and cold blooded exploitation of her sexuality destroy all the men who become infatuated with her.The power of Nana's presence is described by Zola as a psychic emanation that irresistibly attracts male desire. Godard's transposes elements of the Zola story. But because this is now an image driven culture, his Nana in the form of Karina, exists as an object of desire for the camera. It is Godard's camera that loves her image embraces and devours her. When Nana leaves her job in the record shop and takes up prostitution, her male clients barely seem to notice her. Throughout the film the men are self absorbed, as if playing pinball or engaging in masturbation, they barely notice Nana. She is simply someone they pay. Unlike their wives or girlfriends they have to shell out coin.The ethos of cool detachment pervades Vivre sa vie. The guys all wear coats turned up at the collar as they move through a world of artefacts, cafes, and automobiles. The women, immaculately coiffed and kitted out with couture outfits and shoes. It is a world without emotion, the world of advertising, where there are settings backdrops and product display.But Godard fixes his movies with pure concept. To oppose Nana's image defined world he uses a number of cinematic devices, simply interpolated that he cuts into the body of the film. Like the chapter headings they comprise a breaking up of flow, an opening up different idea spectra about what we are seeing.The inter cutting of a section of Dreyer's The Passion of Jean d'Arc. Godard uses a scene with Artaud, theoretician of the theatre of cruelty who plays the monk, Massieu questioning Falconetti's Jeanne. The Material grilling the Spiritual. A section of Edgar Allen Poe, the master of unnameable dread (uncool) is read on camera and later during one of Nana's assignations with a client, the results of the statistical survey of Parisian prostitution are intoned as voice over.There are two more extraordinary interpolations inserted of the body of the film. The scene where a guy mimes the process of a little boy blowing up a balloon. As performance it is intense funny and suddenly in its intensity and power feels like a transposition of male ejaculation. A hyper parody of in-existent sexuality. In a nondescript section of a cafe, Nana and a Philosopher talk about life specifically focusing on 'love' (uncool) at the end of their discussion. Unlike the tracking two shot at the front of the movie, this is shot full face with and pans from Nana to the Philosopher, with the Philosopher finally concluding, in response to Nana's question that love is real "…on condition it is true." In a culture of image how to find what is true and be able to distinguish it from what is not true? In a world of mirrors….Eddie Constantine appears as a spectre throughout Vivre sa vie. His presence as an image inside Nana's head a constant source of reference. And it is almost as if he were in the film, and if you squint your eyes you may see him.With Godard, film doesn't just think, it lives and breaths a world of unseen possibilities .

jackosurfing14 We, as a modern day audience become overtly excited for blockbuster films. With the use of modern day sources such as the internet, it seems embedded in our culture to give films such hype, whether it be action, comedy or romance, blockbuster films have become the only form of cinema for the mass audience to look forward to. The cinema culture is surrounded by remakes, sequels and prequels mostly motivated from one reason, money and most blockbuster that we see, par some, are underwhelming, due to the fact that these films consist of following generic conventions to just please the modern audience. Imagine if Godard films were the true excitement, imagine if the mass audience lined up to be overtly excited for a Godard film, they would most likely be treated to a highly stimulating and innovative experience. 'Vivre Sa Vie' is a film that highlights audacious filmmaking in every sense. A film that is willing to break the barriers of the cinematic universe. 'Vivre sa vie' can only be described as Purely authentic.The story is divided into 12 episodes of a woman life, Nana, and follows her descent into prostitution.The opening minutes introduces the film's protagonist Nana through three separate shots, portraying her face from the left, right and front. From this opening sequence, we gain a sense of awareness to Godard's innovation, presenting a simple presence that embodies a complexity of emotion, and we hope the music will in some way convey a sense of emotion, however the music abruptly seizes before we form a connection, maybe Godard is simple telling the audience to let go.The first episode consist of Nana wanting to breakup with her lover. They engage in a simple conversation, however the way Godard presents the conversation is simply audacious and astonishing. Firstly the characters are facing backwards to the camera, they talk to each other while not in the same frame and they only exist in their individual frame. This scene, as i said, is extremely audacious, as Godard breaks the rules of cinematic discourse, while brilliantly conveying the stages of their relationship, as the separate frames highlights the loss of connection and their love only exist through the reflection of a mirror. It is most definitely one of my favourite scenes of all time.Through the next episode, we see Nana at her work, i presume. The episode is short and simple, however the camera movements are once again brilliant, as the camera sweeps through the store continuously following Nana, it's as if the film is conscious of itself being a film. Furthermore, at the end of the episode the camera moves from Nana position to a view of the street that consist of no characters, it is simply a view, while a character speaks "You attach to much importance to logic". Superb.As the story unfolds we see Nana become more subordinate to men, as the homage to 'the passion of Joan of arc' and the disturbing 'first man', it seems inevitably of Nana descent into prostitution. As Nana is talking to her pimp, the camera moves once again to present two faceless faces, both in line with each other. The camera slowly pans left and right to reveal Nana reaction to the pimp. Once again the camera takes on a life of it's own, only concerned with the emotions of Nana rather than other characters. Furthermore, the simply vision of Godard to establish a shot like this, and the blocking of people is amazing to watch.Through this review i have simply interpret 'Vivre sa vie' as purely subjective, my interpretations could be completely wrong or right, but it doesn't matter, because that's the beauty of this film, it's beautifully ambiguous, it offers multiple subjective views, and the innovation is amazingly authentic. For the audience that appreciate the cinematic boundaries Godard has created, you cannot miss this.

jyrgen755 'Vivre sa vie' has been my favorite film for a long time and I do not feel the need to write a long review explaining why I like this film so much. Instead, I would just like to say that for me, there are two ways of watching it: with subtitles and without subtitles. As I do not speak French, I need to use subtitles to follow the story, but I also like to watch it without the subtitles. Mainly because of its brilliant cinematography. The camera angles, the sets, the use of music/sounds and Anna Karina's undeniable beauty make this film interesting to watch even without paying any attention to the story at all. That said, the story is not worth any less than the visual beauty of the film.