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Zoom LensBy Gregg RickmanPublished on May 26, 1999Swing, Sway, and Sing And sing -- an hour into its story, amazingly, Up/Down/Fragile transforms itself into a musical, with Nathalie Richard's thief in particular taking melodic wing as she bops around the dance floor. Nouvelle vague goddess Anna Karina is also on hand and most of the cast take turns croaking out a tune or passing off stylized walking and posing as choreography by Bob Fosse. Somehow it all works, sustained as it is by the director's evident love for both his characters and the old movies the film draws on. While the movie strongly resembles, in look and feel, the "comedies and proverbs" of Rivette's New Wave compatriot Eric Rohmer, crossed with the musicales of the late Jacques Demy, it sustains a long-distance lyricism that is peculiarly Rivette's own. Up/Down/Fragile screens Monday through Saturday, May 31-June 5, at 7:15 p.m. at the Fine Arts Cinema, 2451 Shattuck (at Haste), Berkeley. Admission is $7; call (510) 848-1143.
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