How's It Going? (Comment ça va ?)

A FILM BETWEEN ACTIVITY AND PASSIVITY

But what is it?

Well, it's the look.

But it's normal.

Yes, but there's something strange in all this.

I don't know, we've got to think of something.

It's the story of a guy.

Do I turn right here?

No.

- Yes, go right. - Okay.

And this guy...

hears from another guy.

This other guy is his father.

- It's there. - OK, I'll reverse.

I hope it'll be all right.

You have to turn right then go straight.

All right.

Then we turn right again and then...

we go straight ahead.

We have to go all the way around.

Around the question.

Around the question!

A guy hears from someone else,

of whom he'd asked nothing.

And this other guy tells him about a woman.

My father wrote to me the other day.

I thought he didn't have your address.

He does.

I decided to send it to him.

What did he want?

Nothing special, really.

He talked about his job,

the problems he's having, his newspaper...

None of that interests me anymore.

He just lives for his work.

Not everyone's like that, so everything's OK. Isn't it?

Yes. That's right.

A woman with whom he had had relations at work.

- Did you say to go right? - Right at the lights.

Are you scared?

A bit.

You know...

I've never screwed a girl like you before.

What's different about me?

You don't talk much.

I'm as bad as your dad, then!

No!

You see, in your gestures...

there are words.

But in the form of silence.

And I really like that silence.

Turn right.

This guy writes to his son

that he's communicated with a woman

where they both work.

I'm turning right.

Sure you wouldn't rather go to my place?

Yes, I'm sure.

He communicated with a woman and had a relationship.

A production relationship.

Are you ready?

Yes, we can start.

Go on!

My comrades and I

had decided to make a little video,

to show at cell meetings in the Paris area,

on the newspaper and its printing plant.

Odette and I were assigned the task of producing it.

Odette was a former union representative

who had worked in computing at Crédit Lyonnais Bank.

Every evening after work,

we met in the basement

to watch what we had done.

We said jokingly

it'd be the first real film of the Union of the Left.

Everything went smoothly at first.

What happened?

We cut here.

What do you mean?

We've decided to cut here.

Who's we? Who decided to cut it here?

Look, we cut here.

But something happens after! Can't we see it?

We cut here!

I don't believe this. Talk about democracy!

I want to see it all,

then we'll decide if we cut here or not.

Let me see the whole thing!

We cut here!

I'd like to see the whole thing, then we'll decide.

OK then, if you want to see it all!

Go on!

The Central Committee was happy with my initiative.

It was the time of the newspaper strikes.

The print workers faced

violent attacks by the newspaper bosses.

So it was important to show how the media functioned

in Communist hands.

Information.

Hands and eyes were going to be given a hard time.

And all because of a simple photo of Portugal,

which the paper had published,

and an accompanying text that I had written

about the situation over there.

How does Portugal come out of it?

How does it go from entry to exit?

We could at least ask ourselves that.

Our power as journalists

isn't somewhere else.

It isn't in Portugal or France, but in between.

Well, it seemed to interest you since you turned round.

There was a noise.

Everyone does that when they hear a noise.

And noise has nothing to do with information?

When Vietnam made a noise, no one turned round.

Yes, but that's simply a work dispute.

As a union representative,

you've no right to say that a work dispute is simple.

What was happening was,

a text on Portugal was being dictated at speed.

Speed has something to do with the way news is presented.

In a daily newspaper, anyway.

I've had enough of this! Let's watch the rest.

And work too, it's daily.

You see, son,

even if I haven't seen you since you moved out of Paris,

I thought this would interest you.

You in particular,

as you've always preferred manual work.

As for me, I'm beginning to see

that the trouble with manual work today

is that it's primarily intellectual.

Primarily writing.

It's wrong, all wrong.

What's wrong?

Precisely! What is wrong?

That noise, that's what is wrong.

Those hands typing, that's what is wrong.

I don't understand.

We say, for example, things are fine in Portugal

but not in France.

Or things aren't fine in Portugal

but they are in France.

Or things are fine at home.

But how things really are, for me or for Portugal,

nobody ever says.

I don't understand.

Look, what do we want to say in this film?

I thought it was obvious.

How a newspaper is made.

But not just any newspaper!

Of course not.

We want to show how information is handled

by us Communists.

Maybe to show that, we first need to look a bit.

That's what we're doing!

Is that so? And what do we see here?

A modern printing plant.

Computer programmers. Photocomposition.

Computer processing.

A modern newspaper for men and women

who are fighting for an advanced democracy!

Socialism again!

Please! You don't even know what a typewriter is.

Come on!

No, we don't know how it works. Not anymore.

A typewriter.

Normal programming on Radio France from midnight.

A seventh government in Portugal soon.

Ministers are refusing to even sit in Parliament.

They feel public pressure is too strong.

What happened was, we started again from scratch.

"Come on, show us how a typewriter works!"

"You don't know what it is."

I don't know, we have to think of something.

Remember when you dictated

your text on Portugal?

- What about it? - Well, we could start with that.

We could do it again.

Do it again?

Yes, re-enact it. The two of us.

To see what happened.

Are you ready?

Yes.

"The image of these soldiers in uniform,

"already an army for the people, whistling..."

Let's take it slower,

let's break it down.

Right, "in uniform"...

"...already an army for the people..."

Yes?

"...whistling the Internationale..."

Yes?

"...surrounded by 20,000 protesters...

"...is going to weigh heavily on the process.

"A representative of..."

We can stop there, I reckon.

We see.

What do we see?

Well, we see this.