Sauve qui peut (la vie)

In collaboration with the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (MAC), the Cinéma Public will celebrate Godard’s birthday on December 3rd. Upon presentation of a proof of purchase for a screening on December 3rd, the MAC invites you to discover, free of charge, a new exhibition devoted to Canadian artist Nelson Henricks.

Director Paul Godard is separated from his wife and daughter and living in a hotel when Denise, his lover, leaves him and moves to the country to start a new life. An alienated Paul tries to find his feet and seeks a rapprochement with his family. Or perhaps he should move into Denise’s old apartment? But the new tenant is slated to be a prostitute who counts Paul among her customers … While waiting on line to see Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights, of all things, Isabelle looks for her next john. And for the next 45 minutes, Jean-Luc Godard loses all interest in the rest of his cast. His camera focusses instead almost exclusively on Isabelle Huppert. “Stop pretending” is the “director’s note” given by Godard the john, when Isabelle pretends to be aroused in bed. It almost seems as if Isabelle Huppert has made that her professional mantra. The emotional distance that Isabelle in Sauve qui peut (la vie) brings to bear on enduring the exercise of the world’s oldest profession is mirrored in the “frugality” of facial expressiveness that make Huppert’s face onscreen the perfect surface for projection. (Berlinale)