''Va savoir'' (Who Knows?) is a 2001 French romantic comedy-drama film directed by

Jacques Rivette Jacques Rivette (; 1 March 1928 – 29 January 2016) was a French film director and film critic most commonly associated with the French New Wave and the film magazine ''Cahiers du Cinéma''. He made twenty-nine films, including ''L'amour fou' ...

. It stars

Jeanne Balibar Jeanne Balibar (born 13 April 1968) is a French actress and singer. Life and career Balibar was born in Paris, the daughter of Marxist philosopher Étienne Balibar and physicist Françoise Balibar. She started her career as a student in the ...

Sergio Castellitto Sergio Castellitto (born 18 August 1953) is an Italian actor, film director, and screenwriter. Biography Sergio Castellitto was born in Rome in 1953, to parents from Molise and Abruzzo, Southern Italy. After graduating from the Silvio D'Amico Na ...

Marianne Basler Marianne Basler (born 9 March 1964) is a French actress. She appeared in more than eighty films since 1980. Selected filmography References External links * 1964 births Living people French film actresses {{France-film-act ...

Hélène de Fougerolles Hélène Christine Marie Rigoine de Fougerolles (; born 25 February 1973) is a French actress who was twice nominated for the César Award for Most Promising Actress (known as the French Oscar) for Arthur Joffé's ''Let There Be Light'' (1998) ...

, and

Catherine Rouvel Catherine Rouvel (born Catherine Vitale; 31 August 1939 in Marseille) is an acclaimed French actress. Her career spans from 1959 in television to 2004. She starred in Jean Renoir's ''Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe'', Marcel Carné's ''Les Assassins de ...

. In the normal version, ''Va Savoir'' is 154 minutes. It was entered into the

2001 Cannes Film Festival The 54th Cannes Film Festival started on 14 May and ran until 20 May 2001. Norwegian actress and director Liv Ullmann was the Jury President. The Palme d'Or went to the Italian film ''The Son's Room'' by Nanni Moretti. The festival opened with ...

. The story of the three couples in the film sometimes parallels the Pirandello play''Come tu mi vuoi'', a lesser known work that was adapted into the film As You Desire Me starring

Greta Garbo Greta Garbo (born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson; 18 September 1905 – 15 April 1990) was a Swedish-American actress. Regarded as one of the greatest screen actresses, she was known for her melancholic, somber persona, her film portrayals of tragedy, ...

. in which the two principals, Camille and Ugo, are performing each night and follows the structure of a Goldoni comedy, in which couples undergo misunderstandings and attraction for others until the final resolution. In the film's ending, the three couples waltz in a circle to the tune ''Senza fine'' (''Endless''), implying that the dance of young people in love will go on forever.

Plot

After three years away, the actress Camille returns to Paris in an Italian troupe run by her husband Ugo, who is touring Europe with an Italian-language production of a

Luigi Pirandello Luigi Pirandello (; 28 June 1867 – 10 December 1936) was an Italian dramatist, novelist, poet, and short story writer whose greatest contributions were his plays. He was awarded the 1934 Nobel Prize in Literature for "his almost magical power ...

play ''Come Tu Mi Vuoi'' (''As You Want Me''). Camille is nervous because she still has feelings over leaving her lover Pierre, who she tracks down in a park. He seems unchanged and has still not finished writing his doctoral thesis on

Martin Heidegger Martin Heidegger (; ; 26 September 188926 May 1976) was a German philosopher who is best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He is among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th centur ...

. While searching privately for a lost Goldoni play, Ugo runs into the attractive Dominique in a library, who advises him to approach a collector. The collector sends him to the private library inherited by Dominique's mother, who warns him that books have disappeared. She is happy for him to browse and Dominique helps him. When she takes him to her bedroom, however, her jealous half-brother Arthur intervenes (it is later revealed that he is her secret lover). Dominique warns Ugo that it is Arthur who steals books to sell. Pierre asks Camille and Ugo to dinner at his flat with his lover Sonia, which proves a disaster as the nervous Camille drinks too much and the jealous Ugo mocks Pierre. When Camille goes round the next day to apologise to Sonia, the two women begin to form a rapport. Now able to be friends with Sonia, Camille is still worried that she has not closed things with Pierre. When she goes to see him, he locks her in a room. Camille escapes by a skylight and barely makes the theatre curtain call of the performance, which Sonia attends. Afterwards in a bar, Arthur pretends to pursue Sonia while taking an impression of her very valuable diamond ring, which he later replaces with a worthless duplicate. In despair at this deceit, Sonia asks Camille for help. She goes round to Arthur's flat and offers him a simple deal: he can choose to either spend the night with her and never see her afterwards, or to have her walk out on the spot. He opts for the night and, once he is asleep, she searches until she finds the ring in the kitchen. Ugo then calls on Pierre and challenges him to a duel, place and weapons to be his choice. When Pierre accepts, he finds that the place is over the flies in the theatre and the weapons are a bottle of vodka each. As Pierre is the first to fall over, Ugo wins. In the meantime, Dominique has found the Goldoni play, not in the library but in the kitchen among her mother's cookbooks. When she brings it to Ugo, roaring drunk after his duel, he says it is so valuable that she must keep it and just give him a photocopy. Camille turns up with the ring and offers it back to Sonia, who says Camille has earned it and must keep it. Reunited and now rich, Camille and Ugo look forward to the next stop on their tour.

Cast

as Camille B. *

as Ugo *

as Sonia *

as Dominique 'Do' *

as Madame Desprez *

Jacques Bonnaffé Jacques Bonnaffé (born 22 June 1958) is a French actor and stage director. He has appeared in more than ninety films since 1980. Debut Jacques Bonnaffé was formed at the Lille Conservatory after his high school years in Douai (North) where he ...

as Pierre *

Bruno Todeschini Bruno Todeschini (born 19 September 1962) is a Franco-Swiss actor. Life and career Todeschini studied at L'école supérieure d'art dramatique in Genève and after graduating in 1986, he joined the Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers, directed by Pat ...

as Arthur *

Claude Berri Claude Berri (; 1 July 1934 – 12 January 2009) was a French film director, writer, producer, actor and distributor. Early life Born Claude Beri Langmann in Paris, Berri was the son of Jewish immigrant parents. His mother, Beila (née Bercu), w ...

as Librarian * Attilio Cucari as Salter * Bettina Kee as Mop * Luciana Castellucci as Lena * Emanuele Vacca as Salesio * Arturo Armone Caruso as Bruno *

Valeria Cavalli Valeria Cavalli (born 1 November 1959) is an Italian actress and model A model is an informative representation of an object, person or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via ...

as Ines * Fausto Maria Sciarappa as Silvio

References

External links

* * * {{Jacques Rivette 2001 films 2001 romantic comedy-drama films French films based on plays Films based on works by Luigi Pirandello 2000s French-language films 2000s Italian-language films Films directed by Jacques Rivette French romantic comedy-drama films German romantic comedy-drama films Italian romantic comedy-drama films 2000s French films 2000s German films

Plot

Cast

References

Further reading

External links