Nana is a self-absorbed struggling actress(working in a store selling records) wanting to make it, and Paul is a sad-sack writer, with no money, who adores her, but is a flunky to her. Both have been "acquaintenances" for quite some time it seems, although, as we see in the opening conversation, they can barely stand being near each other anymore, the vitriol present as they engage in not-so-pleasant banter(in an interesting decision, Godard shoots them from behind as they "chat"). Using Paul for monetary purposes, Nana straggles him along, disposing of him when no longer needed..when asked by someone she meets late at a diner after a movie, Nana tells the date Paul is a brother.

If I seem a little unsympathetic, the movie, although it's clear Godard's camera worships Karina, doesn't exactly cast Nana in the most positive light, but, during a police interrogation, we see she's so desperate for money, she tries to steal 1000 francs which fell out of a woman's purse onto the street..it's here we can see that she's just struggling like many of us, and has a yearning to taste the good life(she agrees to a shoot, requiring nudity, a sleazy photographer promising potential movie success for her).

When there seems to be no alternative, Nana decides, albeit reluctantly, to prostitute herself. Eventually embracing the profession, she begins hooking for a nefarious pimp named Raoul who seems to be conducting business with crooked gangster types. Godard's film, however, is less interested in Raoul's activities, more concerned with Nana and how she makes out in her new career. Not long after meeting Raoul, violence is established, Godard's camera speed rat-a-tat-tatting as a tommy gun goes off, a man entering the café for which Nana is dining with a bloody face, crying aloud, "My eyes!" This could very well be a sign of things to come as Nana associates herself with a man whose connections to this world emerge later.

A steady stream of customers flood through her new life as a prostitute, while becoming educated regarding the tricks of the trade(we hear the rules of the road from an insider to Nana preparing her for the times ahead, and see that she conducts herself in a matter-of-fact fashion, simply business as usual, drowning out the moral implications of such behavior, accepting this decision as a means to survive). Nana will eventually find someone, desire to leave this lifestyle, and discover that it is not so easy to break from Raoul who plans to "trade" her away as if a piece of property to discard when money troubles arrive.

A stylistic choice, Godard augments Nana's progressive story with chapter titles, and his camera can't take it's eye off of Karina..sure the camera, at times, will focus on something else, but notice how it doesn't(or can not)stay away very long. A scene that struck a chord with me was the moment early on in the theater as Nana watches Dreyer's Jeanne d'arc..curious to if this is a comment of martyrdom as it pertains to Nana's future.

Admittedly, I'm no Rhodes Scholar and there are passages where some dumb hick like me did go, "Huh?"(a dinner conversation between Nana and some older intellectual in the middle of reading The Three Musketeers about the difficulty of communication, an example). That's par for the course as Godard's film on prostitution has plenty of these types of moments where some passage from a book or poem is read aloud as the camera moves about, focusing on Paris' city streets or on Karina herself(often listening to another talk, taking in their words intently). Of course, Godard must allow Karina her shimmy-and-shake jukebox trot. What an interesting face(just beautiful)Karina has and Godard doesn't hesitate to return to it time and again.

VIVRE SA VIE is a film by French auteur Jean-Luc Godard, one of those art-house directors that people always bang on about. I'm afraid that I don't share the same sensibilities, although I try to see the films if they're showing on TV just so I know what's being talked about. VIVRE SA VIE is a low budget black and white production about a woman whose promiscuity sees her descend into prostitution, and I'm afraid it's a film which left me cold.

This kind of story was previously done in Emile Zola's famous novel NANA, which brought to life the seediness of 19th century Paris, and by comparison VIVRE SA VIE simply isn't up to scratch. The characters are subdued and bored and thus come across as dull in themselves. I didn't care or feel sympathy for any of them. The film is presented in twelve vignettes but they're all very similar and the viewer doesn't really learn or understand much from watching. It all seems so trivial, a shame when important subject matters are crying out for treatment.

Anna Karina is absolutely stunning. We are taken in by her beauty from the opening moments in the diner. She knows how powerful she is to men and she manipulates that power to try to survive. She is, for all practical purposes, homeless. She tries to borrow money for subsistence but no one will loan it to her. She has asked too many times. She dreams of being in movies but doesn't seem to have the ambition or the plan. It isn't long before she experiments with prostitution, which will become the ultimate complicator in her life. She is so closed up that no one can really befriend her. We see foreshadowing when she goes to see the silent Joan of Arc, and her response to Joan's martyrdom and her faith. It's a sad film that takes one along from one moment to the next.