This was very good film. Although it was lengthy, the events never slowed down. There was always a progression of the plot from scene to scene and the characters are well-figured into their surroundings. If anyone knows the piano melody played during the opening credits, and I believe also in the first ballet teaching scene where Sonia and Arthur talk, PLEASE tell me the name of the piano piece, its wonderful and I HAVE TO KNOW WHAT IT IS! I must say that the film is overall brilliant and very refreshing from the modern Hollywood films I am usually exposed to. The best part of the movie in my opinion was how all the pieces of the plot are connected and resolved at the end, leaving me with an appreciation for just how perfect the plot was. There are also unusually funny moments in the movie that provide for a breath of air since the film is not very fast paced and long. PLEASE SOMEONE FIGURE OUT THE PIANO PART IN THE OPENING CREDITS.

The film's heroine, Camille, a French stage actress left Paris three years ago and found success in Torino, Italy where she became a lead actress for the theater company. She also became a lover of Ugo, a famous stage director. She returns back to Paris with Ugo and his company to act in Italian as a main character in Pirandello's "As You Desire Me", the play that explores the mysteries of identity and memory. While in Paris, Camille confronts her past life and Pierre, the man whom she loved and still can't forget. I found Camille's character (as played by Jeanne Balibar, the stage actress and a dancer) very interesting. She may not be likable in a beginning but she is talented and every character in the movie after watching her performing at the stage leaves with the feelings that they've witnessed something very special. Camille changes as the movie progresses and in the end she becomes like a sister or close friend to both Celine and Julie. Her every movement, gesture, the way she walks, smiles, turns her head, speaks in two languages changing the timbre of her voice are true marvels to watch and to listen to. Ugo tries to find in the Paris libraries the lost but existing play by the Italian dramatist of 18th century, Carlo Goldoni and is helped by an intelligent and beautiful young student, Dominique or Do and they both seem to have developed some special feelings for each other. Dominique has a half-brother, Arthur who is in love with Sonja, a new woman in Pierre's life or is he in love with Sonja's exquisite jewelry? Do and Arthur have a mother, Madame Desprez who has inherited the library of the rare and priceless old books but she does not sell them, she keeps them as a memory of her first husband. Sonja, Pierre's girlfriend seems to bring the peace and happiness in Pierre's life after Camille was gone but she, too, had a mystery in her rather wild past for which a marvelous ring, an object of Arthur's desire serves as a reminder. I like "Va savoir" a lot - it is so well constructed and absolutely Rivettesque and it made me smile all the time. It is long (as usual for Rivette's films) but elegantly relaxed. It moves well with its own wonderful pace and we enjoy leisure walkings and spend time with many old and rare books. We feel longing that is in the air - all six characters desire something and someone. We notice once again how much Rivette likes his characters sitting on the park bench where the magic events begin happening to them. We go through many wonderful sequences, ironic, dramatic, and lyrical and in the end we are awarded by the finale which is truly grand and theatrical in the best sense. After all the movie could be viewed as Rivette's love letter to theater. Va Savoir? Who knows?

"Va Savoir (Who knows?)" is for Eric Rohmer fans, though it's even slower and with less humor than Rohmer's intellectually romantic talk fests.Director Pierre Rivette is a contemporary of Rohmer's whose penchant for long, slow films has hampered his success in the U.S. And I guess this is his most accessible film, as the last half-hour suddenly becomes sweeter and filled with coincidences so the interplays of three couples become intertwined almost in a drawing-room comedy.But first are all kinds of references that went way over my head as I hadn't realized until late in the movie that the play that we keep seeing long chunks being performed in Italian by one of the couples is a Pirandello piece, with the gimmick here that we sort of see it backwards, mostly from the last scene to the start, so I missed some points. The well-acted characters do get more and more interesting as we slowly learn surprises about them such that we start rooting for different combinations than we started out understanding.It doesn't help that the subtitles are stiffly translated by a non-native English speaker, such that "kimono" is translated as "kimono" instead of as "bathrobe" or "l'aggression' as "aggression" instead of "a fight." (originally written 10/21/2001)

The cover of the box said it was a comedy. NOT ONE funny moment, I assure you. Bad acting, especially the main brunette girl who is unfortunately also extremely uninteresting to look at. Static indoor shots of people standing and talking to each other. (Only one good exterior shot, on the Seine.) You can practically hear the director shouting action at the top of each shot, it looks so stagey.I had no idea the French and American sensibilities could be so far afield of each other. Did French audiences really laugh at this.