TIFF Review: Nouvelle Vague (Richard Linklater)

There are at least two movies in Nouvelle vague. The one for the Cahiers fans, about the Parisian film culture in the fifties, and the one for Linklater, about the making of À bout de souffle. Not that these two are not intertwined, but it’s good to have clear expectations.

It’s such a curiosity, I would even describe it as odd. Why is this American filmmaker from Austin, the fun Richard Linklater, making his non-English debut, with this French-language film about a young Godard?

I would say it’s definitely not for the first movie, for the Cahiers fans, even though there’s probably still some of that, but more so for the second one.

Does fan-fiction have a bad rap? Maybe a little: stories of erotic encounters between Harry and Hermione in the Harry Potter universe, the Twilight universe, etc.

But nothing is entirely wrong with fan-fiction per se. And I would say that Linklater does it very well. As an independent filmmaker working since at least 1988 (the year I was born), I would say he’s probably more qualified than most to know and show what it’s like being on a film set.

I think it would be crazy to say that this is a “personal” film for Linklater: Apollo 10½ is probably more about his childhood and the Before movies about being young and growing older.

But there is something about Nouvelle vague that captures the energy of being young, daring, and finally making your first feature which I assume Linklater identified with.

There’s something about the energy of It’s Impossible to Learn to Plow or Slacker that I feel like it’s recreating. A certain jealousy of Godard of his peers that have already made it. A good humour of Godard of having his own ideas of cinema and wanting to act on them. And the whole dynamic of the set is very special too. The more mature but scrappy cinematographer Raoul Coutard is ready to follow Godard in his schemes. Pierre Rissient as the bumbling assistant, lovingly and ironically taking orders. Jean Seberg (incredible) as the annoyed but wonderful American starlet. And Godard taking all of these breaks for inspiration to hit.

And then there’s the whole Cahiers mythology. You can tell Linklater and everyone involved was living a dream being in that world during the time of the shoot. Hell, I would be too. And there’s something contagious about that energy. Do these portrait shots of all these historical figures sometimes take us out of the narrative? Perhaps. But it’s fascinating to see the casting. When I saw Luc Moullet he said that he thought the François character was pretty good. And there’s something about the physiognomy and gestures that make some of the characters really stand out: Suzanne Schiffman is pretty great, and so is Rohmer and Rivette in his smaller role.

While writing my university thesis I wrote something along of the lines that the New Wave films were made with conscious film references in mind as inside references for their peers, and my (then) supervisor asked for a reference, which I found annoying. It was more of an intuition, but it was nice to see that it was presented in the film. 

I don’t know, it was cool to see the Jacques, Doniol-Valcroze, Rozier, and Demy coming into life. And you can tell Linklater and his crew either studied or talked to the foremost expert Antoine de Baecque on the subject (without ever being slaves to the mythology). So many anecdotes of this period are on full display here (even though we can always dispute some of the historical accuracy), but there’s a freshness too that’s exciting. 

I can’t wait to rewatch it in the cinemas when it comes out, and then study it in more detail when it’s out on home-viewing on Netflix. There are so many details about Nouvelle vague that I want to further study. Such a rich experience.

TIFF Review: Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie (Matt Johnson)

The “M” in Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie should stand for Maturity. In it Matt even goes to see a movie and in it someone says, “Why can’t your friends be as mature as you?” 

But what exactly is maturity for the Nirvanna series?

A first point would be an evolution of their comedy. 

When Matt ends up accidentally travelling back in time to 2008 – the year him and Jay first hatched their dream to play a show at The Rivoli – and goes to see The Hangover, he finally realises that his Orbitz-infused time-travel RV really worked as the slurs in the film are laughed at by the audience (which from the perspective of 2025 hindsight we now understand as insensitive). There’s this same refinement of humour that crosses the series, almost as if Nirvanna was a barometer of our times.

I think it was David Lynch that said that comedy is about “timing” and after years of trying to describe the Nirvanna series as about these two hapless but good-hearted musicians trying to get a show at The Rivoli, I think now it might be more appropriate to describe it as about them not trying to get that show. Because it’s becoming clear – after a web-series, two tv seasons, and now a movie – that if they really wanted to book a show there then it would have already happened

There’s also the maturity of their style. There’s been a long gestation and development process for the film to come into being after the finale of Season 2 in 2018. And with this the question of taking the series to the big screen became essential: What raw material was there to sculpt to do justice to the change of scale?

There was always something democratic about the Nirvanna series: no matter who you were – class, race, age –, if you were lucky enough to be around them, while they were filming in Toronto, you could make it into the show. After Wonderland, the ROM and the underground tunnels of the city – among many other wonderful local sites – they had to dream bigger, so they looked up: the CN Tower.

The beautiful premise of The Movie is that their new effort to get a show at The Rivoli involves skydiving off of the CN Tower to land in the Rogers Centre field during a Jays game to announce to the crowd their performance. But they end up going too late in the day and they don’t make it as its rooftop was closing due to poor weather conditions. So their genius idea? Create a time-machine to re-start the day so that they can go earlier on so that their leap is successful.

After Drake got onto the top of the Tower for his Views (2016) album cover, the Nirvanna guys had to out-do him and show us their spin on the city’s iconic tower. It’s insane and I’m sure illegal all that they were able to film there. But that’s why you love it: They have a way of turning Toronto into this exciting playground and lovingly shows its idiosyncratic character, returning it to the people.

They’re creating an image of Toronto that feels truer than anything else, which is especially meaningful as no one else seems willing to do it (or even can).

It’s interesting to note that at the TIFF premieres yesterday, the prime minister Mark Carney (not a cinephile) was at the John Candy documentary, and that the mayor of Toronto Olivia Chow was at Nirvanna. Real ones know.

One last point in terms of maturity. 

There’s a new darkness in The Movie that wasn’t readily there in the previous work. The cinematographer Jared Raab films Jay in these high-contrast shadows. At the start, when Jay is contemplating leaving Matt and is driving to have his solo debut at the Lafayette in Ottawa, there’s almost a violence and pain in how he’s presented. It reminded me of some of Rembrandt’s late self-portraits or Tom Stern’s work with Clint Eastwood. Engulfing its two heroes in shadows culminates in a memorable scene that I’m still thinking about as there’s something so indelible and mysterious about it: After connecting a power-cord from the top of the CN Tower to a plug outlet at the corner of Queen and Spadina, so that when lightning strikes they can re-charge their DeLorean-style time machine, Matt gets incinerated when it finally hits and leaves only his trademark fedora in the wake. From being obfuscated in shadows to fully disappearing, I feel like there’s something significant taking place there.

There’s still lots to say about the Nirvanna movie: Johnson continues his archeology of film history, foraging from other films on day-dreamer musicians and ambitious rock stars – here Back to the Future – and putting them into the Nirvanna cannon (the film is full of other great Toronto cinephile culture references too – hell, I’m even in it!). The special effects of Tristan Zerafa are really impressive, seamlessly making all of these wild stunts believable. Curt Lobb does wonders editing, making the old and new footage go perfectly together. And we finally find out the inspiration for the Brave Shores track Never Come Down.

There’s still much to think about Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie and I suspect it’ll only keep sharing with us its mysteries in the years to come.