107 Va savoir

[Finch]

Released in the UK: April 28th.

Returning home with her travelling theatre troupe, actress Camille (Jeanne Balibar) finds the affections of her director lover Ugo (Sergio Castellitto) have waned after he takes an interest in Dominique (Hélène de Fougerolles), a vivacious student helping him search for an infamous missing play. In a bid to make him jealous, Camille reunites with her former lover Pierre (Jacques Bonnaffé), now happily married to Sonia (Marianne Basler), and a farce-like series of love triangles ensue. Theatrically exploring attraction, jealousy, and every emotion in between, Jacques Rivette’s quick-witted and zesty romantic drama turns a satirical lens on the city’s intelligentsia - for whom Paris will always be their home - to ask whether even they know what love is all about.

LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY FEATURES

New 4K restorations of Va savoir (the 154-minute theatrical cut) and Va savoir+ (the 223-minute director’s original cut), presented on two discs

Original uncompressed PCM stereo audio

Select-scene audio commentary by screenwriters Pascal Bonitzer and Christine Laurent

Archival interview with director Jacques Rivette (2001)

Archival interview with star Jeanne Balibar

Interview with critic Jonathan Romney (2024)

Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Filippo Di Battista

Limited edition booklet with archival writing by Rivette expert Mary M. Wiles

[domino harvey]

For those lamenting any remaining Rivette releases, oldtimers will tell you that for the early years of the DVD format, this was the only Rivette title US audiences could even see, thanks to Sony's DVD (and you can imagine how incomplete an experience that was for those young film students, like myself, trying to piece anything in it to the arguments being made about the director in New Wave books). I haven't seen it since those early days myself, and all I remember is thinking its (original) length wasn't justified by what we got, so great, there's even more here! I'll revisit with this release though, since this falls in a period of Rivette that I like more than most of his other eras

[therewillbeblus]

I think the longer cut is great, and also disliked the original version. My thoughts on why

Revisited Va Savoir vis the longer cut. The first hour really dragged, and I almost turned it off thinking I’d hate it as much as I did the truncated version, but the cumulative vibe started to gel shortly into its second hour and I wound up really enjoying what Rivette was doing here. What becomes apparent in the end of even the short version is that Rivette is playing with screwball devices, but the original rhythm destroyed the necessary breathing room Rivette depends upon to aesthetically craft his intentions. It may read as oxymoronic, but in holding space for a tone to develop, the long cut flies by effortlessly starting in its second hour whereas the short cut never escaped its curious condensing of ideas to ascend beyond a slog. There was no reason to buy in when economy usurped a lucid flow, but here the comedy and drama finally blend and trade off well together. The moods are inserted inside Russian dolls storytelling and labyrinthine webs of extremely banal mysteries, even by Rivette’s standards. The joke seems to be in dissipating the mirage of rich gravitas present in his other work to focus more on a Woody Allen-esque sheen of light whimsical spirit. It's not among his very best films, but it does feel like the logical endpoint for his epic anti-mysteries, especially after he pushed the boundaries of his ethos into an entirely new genre of musical and then obliterated his anti-paranoia with a tangible answer in Secret Defense. It's much like how Woody Allen recalibrated all his past works' tropes and motifs into a diluted piece of lovely fluff in A Rainy Day in New York, as an old man therapeutically approaching the same content and concerns he's addressed throughout his career with a developed serenity from self-actualization. I thought Va Savoir played entirely differently with its extra third put back in place, and highly recommend anyone with access gives it another go when you have four hours to spare

[colinr0380]

Fantastic! This last came out on DVD in the UK through Artificial Eye in the early 2000s but only in the shorter cut and, as with the majority of Artificial Eye titles, no extras. I think the only Rivette film that Artificial Eye released in the UK in both versions (as separate releases) was La belle noiseuse.

(La belle noiseuse incidentally occupies a significant place in UK television history, as the four hour version was the film that Channel 4 showed throughout the night of 5th January 1997, the first evening the channel went to 24 hour broadcasting! Which raised unrealistic expectations for me of that being the direction Channel 4 would follow from that point onward, which was scuppered once live footage from the Big Brother house took over the night time schedules of their channel from 2000 onwards! La belle noiseuse has not been shown on UK television since that single airing)

[spectre]

This is a huge release and hopefully another big step in the direction of viewers being able to approach the director’s cut as Rivette’s definitive vision of Va Savoir, and the film being re-appreciated accordingly.

Like TWBB, I think the four-hour version is vastly superior to the shorter cut (which I also thought little of on first viewing), but I’d go further and say that it is one of his best – I’d be comfortable with placing it in or just outside his top five (after his great late ’60s / early ’70s work and La Belle Noiseuse, and maybe on par with something like Love on the Ground). I feel it captures much of the magic of his earlier work, along with the interplay between theatrical performance and theatrical “real” relationships between a web of protagonists that is at the heart of some of his best films.

[adamfeldman]

Like TWBB, I think the four-hour version is vastly superior to the shorter cut (which I also thought little of on first viewing), but I’d go further and say that it is one of his best – I’d be comfortable with placing it in or just outside his top five

Va Savoir is my biggest Rivette blind spot, so really looking forward to this release and very psyched to hear this.

My top 3 would be Out 1 / L'Amour Fou / Belle Noiseuse, but after that I might throw a few curveballs as I really like Haut Bas Fragile and Joan the Maid.

[therewillbeblus]

Haut Bas Fragile has a lot of love here. It’s my second favorite after his first feature

[Michael Kerpan]

Pont du nord is my sentimental Rivette favorite -- and then there is a massive tie for second place.