Vivere | Film Review | Slant Magazine

FILM MOVIE REVIEW

Vivere *½

by Ed Gonzalez on February 29, 2008 Jump to Comments (0) or Add Your Own

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A little less gloss, yak, and structural fracture and Vivere could pass for Climates, but the temperature here is still the same as in Nuri Bilge Ceylan's last film: pretentious. Why is Francesca (Esther Zimmering), a Cologne taxi driver, sent to buy pills for her sister Antonietta (Kim Schnitzer)? Why does Gerlinde (Hannelore Elsner) ignore Francesca's request not to smoke in the backseat of her cab? How does Gerlinde recognize Antonietta at the Rotterdam train station if they don't know each other? From Francesca and Antonietta's home, which the girls share with their Italian father, to the side of the road where Francesca finds the injured Gerlinde and, finally, the club where Antonietta's musician boyfriend is playing a gig and the trio of women discuss the black holes in the sky above and the "moron satellite" they live on, writer-director Angelina Maccarone thrives on confounding audiences. That is, until the story abandons Francesca's point of view and begins backtracking, retelling itself from Gerlinde's perspective, then a third time from Antonietta's vantage point. But the film illuminates facets of its own self in only the most superficial ways, such as the trickle of vomit that spews from Antonietta's mouth in the middle stretch, revealed in the third leg to be the result of morning sickness. Vivere scoffs at linearity in a desperate attempt to disguise the fact that it has nothing profound to say about women and their sexual agency across borders both national and generational.

Director(s): Angelina Maccarone
Screenplay: Angelina Maccarone
Cast: Hannelore Elsner, Esther Zimmering, Kim Schnitzer, Aykut Kayacik, Egbert-Jan Weeber, Friederike Wagner
Distributor: Regent Releasing
Runtime: 97 min.
Rating: NR
Year: 2007