Who Knows? 2001

Resplendent from the first frame to the last, Jacques Rivette’s Va savoir ! is the jewel in his crown, a film that in its high artistic quality, subtle complexity and sublime mise-en-scène resembles Jean Renoir’s Rules of the Game and Ingmar Bergman’s Smiles of a Summer Night, landmark movies with which it also shares thematic similarities. This superbly acted ensemble piece, which chronicles the fables and foibles of an Italian theatrical company performing in Paris, focusing on the leading actress and her lover-director, is the most fluently staged – and most enjoyable – film to be shown in Cannes this year…

Most of the action is set in the theatre, where the touring company performs, with elaborate scenes from Pirandello’s As You Desire Me presented on screen; backstage in the dressing rooms; and in the hotel, where the leading lady and her director share a suite with adjacent rooms. Gradually, what is considered public space becomes private and vice versa.

The theatrical production serves as both the backdrop and a revelation site for the complex, ever-changing and overlapping passions of each of the characters’ secret desires. Indeed seldom have the issues of whether life imitates art or art imitates life been given such a shrewdly elusive and astutely insinuating interpretation.

Following Renoir’s expansive mode, Rivette employs an almost Mozartian vision to encompass amorous dalliances, assignations and betrayals; there is even a botched duel at the end between two jealous lovers…

Moral and ethical codes are also continuously changed and broken in a mode that would make Rivette’s New Wave colleague Rohmer proud. The amusing irony with which the entire tale is related recalls Rohmer’s moral fables and their delusional characters. Issues of love, passion, friendship, sacrifice, honour and redemption are treated in a cunningly knowing manner…

The sharply-observed screenplay is by Christine Laurent and Pascal Bonitzer, who has collaborated with Rivette on eight of his movies. The choice of  a play by Pirandello, who explored the duality motive and the fine line between life on stage and off, is most appropriate…

Trusting his material and splendid cast, Rivette does not force the situations into conventionally melodramatic encounters and revelations – there are no tricks or any exaggerations. Seamlessly staged, with not a single faux pas by the camera or false cut by the editor, Va savoir ! stands as a testament to mise-en-scène at its highest glory. — Emanuel Levy, Screen International, 17/5/01