You're late! Kiss me.
We're waiting!
The French franc keeps dropping, Baron.
Is it yes or no?
We'll soon find out.
This is me.
"A Prisoner of Love".
That's why you changed "Man's Hope" to "expectations"?
Shit, the cinema!
36 CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF HISTORY
Expectations...
That's the word I'd like to write.
Modern life is too fast-paced
to allow any room for a feeling so ardent,
so tender.
We shrug our shoulders at this chaste betrothal with the future.
Modern man has no time to hope,
nor to love.
It's the little people who hope. Not the modern world.
Like the saints who atone and love for us.
Everywhere in our poor Europe,
the tradition of modest expectations is in the hands of the poor.
Like old seamstresses, whose lace work
no machine could ever match.
You'll say that these poor fools...
Living on expectations, are no more laudable for hoping than for living.
Probably...
Next!
Mr Vitalis, I'm Baron Felix.
"War is easy. It's..."
So is it yes?
What's your film called?
"The Fatal Bolero".
100,000 francs.
Go on.
1,000,000 francs.
Good thing I'm not serious or I'd think it over for another year.
"War is easy. It's sticking a piece of metal in a piece of flesh."
No, not at all!
Tonight at 10. I booked a table at Edgar.
We're expecting you.
No, Father! It's not for you anymore. You have to turn the page!
We'll start over after vacation.
I need to speak to you.
She sent me a letter.
You're lucky.
Yes, but I'm scared.
Too much of her brings me bad luck.
Will you be at your mother's for vacation?
Yes, Uncle.
I'm going to Madrid to get a book.
I'll come to see you before going to Paris.
- How old is it now? - 35. You should know.
Either you're faithful or you aren't.
Each in his own way. I was in Spain.
I found Azana's book about how Don Quixote was invented.
I haven't forgotten.
With the communists I'll go to my death.
But I won't go one step further.
Something's wrong.
Is it her or is it him?
- You'll have to push. - I'm tired!
I know, I know.
You saw Sollers' article in "Le Monde",
"Sarajevo and Marivaux".
Let's go by foot. It's not far.
She's given him the idea of going to Sarajevo
to put on "The Game of Love and Chance".
As if France needed that!
That screwy philosophizing daughter of yours!
He says he'll find a sponsor,
if I lend him the car.
Can you imagine?
The car in which Albert Camus got killed
drives on to Sarajevo.
I may have Corneille or Racine.
We said no tragedies!
How about Musset?
- "One Mustn't Play at Love" - In Sarajevo.
I heard Musset was mean to George Sand.
Serves her right.
And what's more, Camille...
that's me!
Happiness is such a rare pearl
in this earthly ocean.
I know her. Three years ago, she wanted to deliver Jerusalem.
In the meantime, she's unemployed.
In Madrid, candles are forbidden in every church.
- What do they use? - Electricity.
Good God.
- I agree. - I don't.
"We begin by defending a Republic and end up robbing stagecoaches": Hugo.
I don't like guerillas,
that ass Guevara, 2 or 3 Vietnams...
Yeah, Dad. 2 or 3 Americas.
Kings lunch, princes dine, paupers sup.
That's right.
So, who starts?
I, Albert Camus' granddaughter,
decide to put on "One Mustn't Play at Love" in Sarajevo.
It's suicide.
"Suicide is the only serious philosophical problem."
"The Rebel", page one.
To do so, I've asked
the help and support of my cousin, here present.
Children were once parental property.
Yes, but when children are grand,
they belong to their grandparents.
Say something.
No, he'll take his $100,000 for the "Fatal Bolero".
Ridiculous!
Shameful!
How horrible.
I have their word.
We'll never see that money.
This is what Juan Goytisolo told me in Madrid:
Is the history of Europe
in the 1990's a simple rehearsal
with slight symphonic variations
of the cowardice and chaos of the 1930's?
Austria, Ethiopia, Spain, Czechoslovakia:
a dreadful, unending Bolero by Ravel.
Anyway, the war is over.
So what? It was a civil war!
What you're saying is irrelevant!
Anyway, he's right.
What about the forests? The fish? The wolves?
What's she talking about?
You heard me.
They'll rebuild it any which way.
No use voting green.
I'd like to go away.
With them.
It's not good enough here?
No, I'm not happy.
She can be Rosette.
There's nothing more to say.
Yes, there's more.
Now that I'm unemployed,
during these slow, empty hours,
a sadness rises into my mind from the depths of my soul.
Bitterness that everything is a sensation belonging only to me
and also something outside me.
Something I'm incapable of changing!
Alas, life's a nightmare bad enough. Leave our dreams out of it.
Articulate!
Yes, Uncle.
How often do my own dreams rise before me?
They represent what's most intelligent in the young generation,
in this Europe,
not purified, but corrupted by suffering...
To tell me how they resemble reality.
Not exalted,
but humiliated by its new-won freedom.
...because I refuse them
and they appear suddenly from the exterior.
You too,
nothing but youth for sale.
Who's the father of characters in a play?
It was your idea to do theater there...
It's the author, Dad.
And who is the mother?
The actor.
Come with us... please.
I have to stop by Paris.
Listen to my idea.
Remember Hemingway's house?
My Lord, I come to ask a favor of you.
The villagers to whom I spoke say you love your cousin
and that you wooed me as a kind of joke.
You'll need some money.
I've saved up.
Like that?
Alas... let's go!
What were you talking about?
Do you mind telling me?
We were talking about our country.
He lives in Prague now. His family was killed.
We were talking about death and about how you feel.
When it hits you?
Yes.
It's not like in books. They use nice sentences,
but it's not like that.
I told him what happens. He agreed.
You don't feel anything, but you say something.
What?
Once I was run over by a police car.
There was an explosion. I fell.
I was lying on the sidewalk in a daze.
But I didn't think of dying.
There is no death.
There's only...
me...
who is going to die.
We're expecting you !
No, we're staying here.
Don't be stupid. It's cold.
No, we're staying here.
- At least come eat. - We'll manage.
I'll be back later.
A room with a view. Let's get to work.
What did he want?
What an ass.
Let's get to work.
Kings lunch, princes dine,
paupers sup.
Not like that.
Words are words and kisses are kisses.
I realize I have little wit as soon as I open my mouth.
Let's get to work.
Tonight, philosophy.
Say something.
I think, therefore I am.
In "I think therefore I am,"
the "I" of "I think" is not the same as the "I" of "I am". Why?
The relation between body and spirit has yet to be shown.
Between thought and existence.
It's not funny.
I bit my tongue.
The sensation of I have of existence is not yet a "me".
It's an unreflected sensation.
It's born within me, but... without "me".
What are you up to?
Nothing, Uncle.
Is everything okay?
We're not tourists, Dad.
I'm asking because people are unhappier than we think.
And after all,
there's no such thing as grown-ups.
What are you thinking?
I was wondering why I'm here...
and what it means to be here.
Do you regret having come?
No.
Why do we ask such questions?
Why do we ask whether we exist or not?
I'm alive and I'm here.
Why is it dark at night?
Maybe the universe was once young like you.
And the sky was all ablaze.
As the world grew older, it grew farther away.
When I look at the sky through the stars,
I only see what has disappeared.
Tomorrow, Sheherazade.
I brought you a book.
A law of what?
There's a law of compensation.
Like with banks?
Balance, if you prefer.
Come on... for France.
Still no news?
A postcard.
It's three weeks old.
Justice always prevails.
lf you have a wife
and children, you can't write Hamlet.
I thought Shakespeare was married.
You've never read him! I have.
He missed out on some good stuff.
Defeat of intelligence.
What now?
I'm giving up. I'm tired.
Is Sarajevo far?
Just think...
That's all I do.
"I am but a living stage on which various actors do various plays."
Fernando Pessoa.
Yes. Remember his outline for Faust?
Act 1 : War of intelligence against itself.
Act 2: War of intelligence.
It's the Minister of War.
Of Defense, Sarah.
How's your book?
It's coming along, Mr Minister of Defense...
but not of the State!
Of the Republic!
Act 4: War of intelligence against action.
Act 5: Defeat of intelligence.
I see.
Very few people can see.
I hear, then !
Let's go.
Just another 300 kilometers.
One more cigarette.
Shit, he left!
Vichy wasn't the Republic.
But was the Revolution? And its soldiers?
It helps to use the right words.
Harry, books are crimes.
"And as long as there are hacks
"who scribble away,
"there will be scoundrels
"out to kill."
Victor Hugo.
Your children are in Yugoslavia, right?
Her son and his cousin.
- What for? - To put on Musset in Sarajevo.
With 17 empty theaters in Paris!
Are the poor kids having fun? What do they hope to find?
A taste of freedom we're lacking here.
"Freedom? What for?"
You understand, this is France here.
There, it's America.
She's scared. Remember those pilots.
We know they were tortured.
Tell her France will help if necessary.
I see a house!
What is she saying? I can't hear!
She said: "The poor will save the world."
Like us... poor asses.
They'll do it despite themselves.
Just try. Fight.
I saw a house. We're safe.
They'll do it despite themselves.
They'll ask for nothing in exchange.
They don't know the price of services rendered.
They'll accomplish this immense task.
Across the street,
the Vietnamese made Kissinger yield.
The peace talks. Nation against State.
You know what de Gaulle said of the French?
"They live in France. France lives in me."
You owe me a favor.
I'll do what I can.
At this table, 40 years ago, Rosselini finished "Pulcinella".
France won't help.
You say you love me. And you never lie?
Never.
Yet this maiden has told me that you do.
What will you say to her, Perdican,
when she holds your words against you?
What did I do to make you cry?
I understand Alfred de Musset.
But all her talk about philosophy...
What's that?
Almost nothing
or...
something I don't know.
Something between the two.
Who is it?
What do you think?
What are we responsible for?
For what we do and for what we let happen when we can prevent it.
One's active and the other's passive.
Yes, of unequal importance.
Letting children starve to death,
as we've done in Africa and elsewhere,
is nothing to be proud about.
But killing one child is something else, something worse.
In the first case, you're responsible by default.
In the second, you're responsible by excess.
An excess of violence, of hatred.
Isn't an excess of evil worse
than an absence of good?
Okay, once again :
One is never totally innocent of what one can prevent,
but one is totally guilty only of what one does.
Is he still in love with you?
That's his problem.
I hope he isn't.
It's up to you.
"Philosophy is almost nothing," he told me.
"Or...
something I don't know."
I see.
You need to have faith.
Like in Islam, or with your Christ.
No, that's not philosophy at all.
Let's get going.
I'm with the Red Cross. Meet my secretary.
They speak every language here.
The International Brigade?
No, international brigands.
Where did we leave off?
Let's discuss the prisoners.
There are no more prisoners.
Their cigarettes are here.
The hostages, if you prefer.
France wants to know, Miss.
You know my name?
We saw you on CNN last week.
That's nice.
I'm bored. What can I do?
Go shoot your load.
How about the bank?
The hostages, please.
We need to interrogate them.
Laws are laws,
even in wartime, Commandant.
He's a General!
What's the writing on the wall?
It's Cyrillic.
What does it mean?
Sarajevo, whore of the Occident.