Vivre ensemble (Anna Karina, 1973)

Anna Karina made her directorial debut Vivre ensemble in the wake of her main period of international stardom, during which she was usually cast as a pretty enigma, seldom explored as a human being (although she does play the least artificial character in The Magus, for what that’s worth). Vivre ensemble, in which she also stars, might have been conceived as an explicit rebuke to such categorization, emphasizing in every scene her character’s individualism and impulsiveness. At the start, it teases us with the promise of a straightforward love story, emphasizing the bolt-of-lightning attraction between Julie and Alain, set against peppily soft music, and soon afterwards establishing the intoxicating nature of their sexual connection. But Karina takes her film in unpredictable directions – literally so in the case of an interlude in New York, providing a fascinating outsider’s perspective on Vietnam protests, drifting lifestyles and pre-gentrification neighborhoods. On returning to France they have a child, prompting her to a greater sense of purpose and direction, but by then he’s stuck moving in the opposite direction (Days of Wine and Roses may come to mind as a general reference point) – they break up, and the film ends on a note of well-judged, hurting uncertainty. The film is well attuned to the limits of its titular state of being together, its point-of-view close-ups suggesting they see each other rather as movie characters, most alive when directly confronted, but otherwise largely unknowable (Karina deglamorizes herself in some respects, while often suggesting that her wide eyes and easy smile are as much a disguise as a window). This may link to a vein of otherwise unacknowledged movie love which evokes Karina’s formative period with Godard – posters of Buster Keaton and the Marx Brothers prominently displayed in the apartment, an argument over whether the baby’s name is Jules or Jim. Overall, the film should be seen as far more than a quirky footnote in Karina’s filmography; perhaps it can be understood as a weary conversation with much of what preceded it.